Appiah-Ofori Did not Kick Against New Voters’ Register

Appiah-Ofori

The news story was sensationally captioned “NPP’s PC Appiah-Ofori Kicks Against New Voters’ Register” (Modernghana.com 5/28/20). But the contents of the news article belied the caption because like the rest of the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens, especially eligible voters, Mr. Paul Collins Appiah-Ofori, the retired New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, emphatically acknowledged the fact that the current National Voters’ Register (NVR), that is staunchly backed by the key operatives of Ghana’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), was unacceptably replete with the names of a remarkably high percentage of foreigners.

So, what we really ought to be seriously discussing as a nation of progressive and law-abiding citizens is why the leaders of the National Democratic Congress, including former President John Dramani Mahama, Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, the National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, and the NDC’s General-Secretary, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, would be insistent on using a National Voters’ Register which nearly every psychologically balanced and healthy adult Ghanaian citizen is in agreement that it is heavily and unacceptably contaminated. It is quite obvious from the foregoing observations that the leaders of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) clearly seem to be far more particular or concerned about the wholesome quality of Ghana’s democratic cultural praxis than their main opponents of the National Democratic Congress and the latter’s left-leaning allies, who criminally and deliberately jampacked our National Voters’ Register with the names of foreign nationals in the runup to the 2016 General Election.

To be certain, our National Voters’ Register has been criminally and deliberately fraught with the names of foreigners since the inception of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, when the Rawlings-fangled National Democratic Congress hermetically almost exclusively controlled the institutional establishment of the Electoral Commission, including the Jerry John Rawlings-appointed Chairman of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan. Thus, for some twenty-odd years, Ghana’s Electoral Commission was literally the personal and private property of the movers-and-shakers of the National Democratic Congress. It is this proprietary arrogance that makes the likes of Candidate John Dramani Mahama and General-Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia cavalierly think and believe that they can impose their political will and caprice on Ghana’s 30-Million-Plus citizens and the electorate, number approximately just under 20-Million people.

The highly respected Mr. Appiah-Ofori has little credibility when it comes to the question of how best or the most effective manner in which to clean up our current heavily contaminated National Biometric Voters’ Register (NBVR). Mr. Appiah-Ofori, who has absolutely no first-hand experience in running any form of election or electoral process in the country, cannot casually presume to lecture the Jean Adukwei Mensa-chaired Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on how to clean up the current National Voters’ Register in the runup to the 2020 General Election. That decision almost exclusively belongs to the IEC with the relevant and requisite oversight approval of Ghana’s Parliament or National Assembly. And so far, there is absolutely no evidence indicating that the IEC is or has been the least bit in breach of any salient or even minor rule or rules of conduct.

Mrs. Mensa has had more than an adequate number of occasions to meet with both Parliament and IPAC, the official association of all legally registered political parties in the country, to amply discuss why it is far more cost-effective for the IEC to compile a new Voters’ Register from scratch, than to resort to the far more costly but mediocre and laborious process of weeding out the names of foreigners packed onto the country’s humongous Voters’ Roll or Register, which would be more time-consuming and far less effective than compiling a new National Biometric Voters’ Register from scratch. This is the crux of the matter, and absolutely no amount of swear or curse words or rhetorical intimidation from any of the leaders of the National Democratic Congress and the opposition party’s bugle blowers would alter the legislatively sanctioned decision to compile a new Voters’ Register.

Ghana, long and far preexists any political party or establishment in the country; so it is rather absurd for the leadership of any political establishment in the country to facilely presume that it could dictate the destiny of the 30-Million-Plus Ghanaians who have decided that they want absolutely nothing short of a thoroughly wholesome electoral system. Parliament has already decided that absolutely no cost is much too exorbitant for the kind of progressive and meaningful democratic culture that the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian citizenry bargained for when they wisely and auspiciously decided that it was time for the Rawlings-led Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) to give way to the civilized New Order that is Ghana’s present democratic Fourth-Republican dispensation.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

May 28, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]