Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, General Secretary of NDC
At the height of the ‘we won’t allow the compilation of a new voters register’ campaign by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), so many untoward things happened.
From engaging civil society organizations (CSOs) to prosecute the project and organizing street demonstrations, including countless press conferences, the NDC kept the momentum. So much money was earmarked and released for the various interventions that for many it was a significant source of making some good money from the NDC gravy train. The chairman of a rival political party abandoned his grouping and joined this cause.
The President of the National House of Chiefs, for instance, could have pushed his agenda better than he did by veiling it somewhat. His effort at berating the Electoral Commission (EC) for not, as he claimed, engaging chiefs on the voters register fell flat on the ground; it turned out that his position failed a veracity test.
For someone who claimed when the late President John Evans Atta Mills assumed power, he and his people then felt as being Ghanaians than in previous times, his political allegiance was palpable.
Now that the position of the NDC on the compilation of a new voters roll has shifted to an acquiescence, those engaged in organizing the dirty operation ahead of the date should call off the mission.
Much as the party has announced loud and clear its agreement, we have reservations about its sincerity because it is a party which, like mercury, changes its position incessantly.
We have heard that those engaged in the NDC project were expectedly hit by the courtroom change in stance and considering what to do next.
Those who joined the NDC in fighting the register rolled the dice while undertaking the project, a bad gamble.
They must call off their ‘fear and panic’ campaign project in the north and return to base for a fresh strategy on how to get many of their supporters to register. That is the way.
Even as the party screamed against the registration, it was subtly working on a Plan B which is getting agents to study the workings of the new register. The ways of the NDC are many, but all of them are weird and absurd.
To be left in the cold the way those who carried the cross of the NDC were is painful, but with nothing to do under the circumstances all they can do now is join the campaign for a new voters register because that is the only way to ensure credible polls.