Haruna Iddrisu
All things being equal, there shall be in place a system which would make the enrolment of qualified persons onto the electoral roll a continuous process. A hassle-less affair for those who attain the voting age will be a novelty for which we should commend the leadership of the Electoral Commission (EC) and the originator of the digitisation agenda of the country.
We would then say adieu to the usual dog’s dinner queues and the associated security challenges of stopping hordes of Togolese and others smuggled into the country by the NDC, to compromise the register.
And what better way to ensure the integrity of the voters’ register than the use of the Ghana Card as the sole prerequisite.
An election is a process not a one-day event at the polling station. They are about a clean voters’ register, bereft of details of foreigners and others unqualified to partake in the choice of our political leadership.
Ghana has since the return to democratic rule, after the hiatus occasioned by a long spell of military rule, undergone assortment of great changes in the electoral process.
These processes have made the elections especially, in the past few years, the cynosure of the democratic world.
It is instructive to note that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and notable Civil Society Organisations have played strident roles in the replacement of anachronistic practices in the electoral process in the country, an outstanding one being the replacement of the transparent ballot box, and the use of photographs for voter IDs.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has never been supportive of efforts at improving the integrity of the electoral process in the country.
When in 2020 it became apparent that the integrity of the electoral roll needed a facelift and the issue put out to Ghanaians, the NDC were at their noisiest, screaming at the top of their voices and even threatening brimstone, should the register be changed.
They even asked their supporters not to register for the new voter cards. Their project did not yield dividend as their supporters and the leadership registered in their numbers, albeit with their tails behind their hind legs.
A few days ago they were at it again twisting the facts of a story regarding novelties to the registration process.
The language of the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, was most disappointing as he sought to cast the EC in bad light in his remarks. Such references to the EC as “in pursuit of their political agenda,” as he uttered when he addressed the media, is a sad reflection on the integrity of the main opposition party in the country.
The beef of the NDC is that there is a project, as he put it, to make the Ghana Card the only prerequisite for the acquisition of the voter’s ID card.
With the NDC’s plan of smuggling in non-Ghanaians from neighbouring countries, to partake in our elections hinging on the use of multiple of prerequisites beyond the Ghana Card, the party’s elections strategists have had their project deflated once more.