Jean Mensa
Less than three months to arguably the most crucial elections in our Fourth Republican history, the political temperature is at fever pitch.
Tension is mounting everywhere, like a Graphic reporter once narrating situational reports from then turbulent Aboakyer festival said, “there is tension everywhere in Winneba and everyone is running helter skelter”. Yes, there is stiff competition for the “coup de grace,” that is the ultimate in state power, the coveted President of the Republic, but we are certain that in spite of the political heat, Ghanaians, young and old, the physically challenged, visually impaired and the hearing impaired who are qualified to vote will turn up in their numbers to exercise their choice of leaders on December 7.
Since 1992, we have experienced threats of violence on election day, the counting process and the declaration of results, but at the end of the day, the “ugly noises” become muted.
We worry about the fact that Ghanaians are allowing John Mahama’s diagnosis of the people suffering from short memories becoming a reality, because we don’t seem to remember our history, although it is said that the people who do not remember their history are doomed to fail. Nonetheless, we have elected to constantly remind the people about their history so that once again they do not give power to the followers of the spirit of impossibilities.
The NPP after the controversial polls in 1992 wrote the “Stolen Verdict”, the party went to court in 2013, while the NDC went to court in 2021, but in both instances of the election petition, our apex court, the Supreme Court affirmed the verdict of the Electoral Commission (EC).
Have we learnt any lessons from those petitions? There could be some irregularities associated with elections, but in all our cases, the evidences were not sufficient to overturn the sovereign will of the people.
Ever since Jean Mensa was appointed EC’s Chairperson, one political group, the NDC led by John Mahama have been experiencing sleepless nights, and occasionally when they are able to catch some sleep, their nightmares lead to sleepwalks. And whenever they are able to overcome these spells, including those coming from India as stated by John Mahama, then the hallucinations begin first by Johnson Asiedu Nketia, mimicked by John Mahama and Franklin Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, and the apparatchiks join to sing the discord, “descend on all 16 regional offices of the EC and its headquarters in Accra to demand the audit of the provisional voters’ register and corrections to anomalies the NDC has detected.”
The NDC is engaged in this needless assault on the EC, regardless of our history and the essence of the exhibition of the provisional voters’ register.
In our recent history of elections in 2012, 2016 and 2020, these same anomalies for which the NDC wants to disturb our peace and stability were detected, but the EC used its internal mechanism to resolve them.
We ask the NDC, whether they ever saw trees and animals on the provisional electoral roll, which the EC corrected? If the NDC suffers from “short memories amnesia”, majority of Ghanaians are alert to the evil machinations of the party.
We know that once upon a time, the venerable V.C.A.R.C. Crabbe sat as a sole “inquisitor” to interrogate similar wild claims which led to certain reforms. However, the irony of our present circumstances is that, some elements in our society, especially the NDC and its allies are very quick to point to the independence of institutions such as the Judiciary and the EC, but quickly make U-turn to make demands that fit their parochial political persuasions.
The National Capo of the NDC, the man who calls himself General Mosquito because of his deadly rhetoric, has invited his supporters onto the streets in all 16 regional capitals because he claims the voters’ register is being manipulated to favour Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, the man on whose head John Mahama has heaped all our woes, and calling on Ghanaians to reject him on December 7. Paradoxically, the NDC fears this same man John Mahama claims is a mere mate who cannot be entrusted with the steering wheels of the state.