Politics of Sunday, 14 June 2020

Source: peacefmonline.com

Ofosu-Ampofo must retract ‘no registration’ statement - Atik Mohammed

Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, National Chairman, NDC play videoSamuel Ofosu-Ampofo, National Chairman, NDC

National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo has been asked to retract comments he made urging members not to take part in the upcoming voters' registration exercise.

Atik Mohammed, a member of the People's National Convention (PNC) says since the NDC has accepted to take part in the exercise following a choice they made at the Supreme Court, Ofosu Ampofo should retract his comment.

"I guess he didn't know this was going to happen but going forward, he should come out to say that we are not going to resist the compilation of the new voters register any longer because maybe those who heard his initial comment might not hear what transpired at the Supreme Court; so I would expect him to humbly retract and urge his members to take part,” he said.

Mr Ofosu-Ampofo reportedly charged members of the party to reject calls to take part in the upcoming Electoral Commission's (EC) mass voters' registration exercise scheduled to begin on June 30, 2020.

"We say no to the new register and even if Parliament passes the legislation we will not accept it. We are not just against it because they will not accept the old voter card but because the whole atmosphere in the country is not conducive," he said.

However, when the NDC appeared in court and they were asked to chose between two reliefs: the first being to stop the Electoral Commission from compiling a new voters' registration exercise and the second being to compel the Commission to use the old voter ID card for compiling the new register, they chose the latter.

This according to political pundits mean the NDC now supports the compilation of a new register.

Reacting to this on Peace FM’s morning show 'Kokrokoo', Atik added: "it took them over six months to come to this point . . . you know we have to do a new register but you made it difficult for the EC to do its work. I’m happy we've got to a point the NDC have concluded before the Apex Court that they back the compilation of the new register; we are making progress".