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Bloated register: You can't challenge Bawumia with empty hands - Nana Akomea

By Myjoyonline
Politics Bloated register: You can't challenge Bawumia with empty hands - Nana Akomea
SEP 5, 2015 LISTEN

The NPP Communications Director has dismissed as absurd arguments by a group of Ghanaians living in Togo that the NPP could not have obtained the Togolese voters’ register.

Nana Akomea says those who doubt the authenticity of the Togolese voters’ register used by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia cannot present Ghanaians with nothing and yet expect to be taken seriously.

The Vice-Presidential nominee of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Dr. Bawumia, has been leading the party to ratchet up pressure on the Electoral Commission to compile a new voters’ register.

With copies of the Togolese voters’ register and that of Ghana, the NPP says it used biometric facial recognition technology and found potential matches of 76,000 names on both registers.

These voters used the same names, have the same facial and other features on the voters’ registers of both countries, the party is claiming.

But some Ghanaians living in Togo are contesting the claims by the NPP that it compared the Togolese voters' register to that of Ghana and found that thousands of Togolese vote in Ghana.

The group, calling itself Ghana Citizens in Togo Friday called a press conference saying it is impossible for the NPP to obtain that country's voters' register which would prove the claims.

Addressing the media in the Togolese capital Lome, leader of the group, Joseph Brown Hammond, said a professor with the Togo Electoral Commission has “denied categorically” that Togo’s voters’ register has been given to a third party.

“It was impossible for anyone to lay his hands on the document....not even political parties in Togo have access to their register”, Joseph Hammond claims.

The group challenged Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the running mate of the NPP 2016 flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, to explain how he obtained Togo’s voters register “kept under guard”.

Commenting on the matter on Joy FM and MultiTV’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Saturday, September 5, 2015, Nana Akomea said if the group wants to be taken seriously, it ought to have produced the authentic Togolese voter’s register.

“How do you accuse Dr Bawumia of using a voters’ register that is not authentic and yet you don’t give us the authentic register,”? he asked.

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