Asiedu-Nketia Gives the Lie to NDC Voters’ Register Protest

You may have seen the original interview granted by the General-Secretary of Ghana’s main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, to a television talk-show host or news anchor, recently, in real time. I only saw a few seconds of the same on a WhatsApp videoclip that was dispatched to me by a relative over the last twenty-four hours, in which the dynastic fixture of the NDC lays down the gist and crux of his party’s vehement protest against the Parliament-approved decision by the administrators of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to compile a new National Biometric Voters’ Register (NBVR).

In this television interview, the recent “Affirmative-Action” graduate of the Ghana Armed Forces Senior-Staff College alerts his countrymen and women to the fact that the clamor by the leaders of his party, the National Democratic Congress, against the very wholesome decision by the Jean Adukwei Mensa-chaired Independent Electoral Commission to compile a new Biometric Voters’ Register (BVR) may, after all, be decidedly a nonissue that Ghanaians, irrespective of political party affiliation or ideological suasion, ought not to frivol or waste a split second of their breaths on. According to the former Jerry John Rawlings-appointed Deputy Minister of Defense, the number of ballots cast by eligible Ghanaian voters in the polling booth, in the upcoming 2020 General Election, or any previous General Election, for that matter, has absolutely no significance, whatsoever, on the outcome of the country’s electoral process.

According to the former NDC-Member of Parliament for Wenchi-West, what matters most or more than all else, is the critical question of who really gets to count and tally up the votes cast. Well, if that is, indeed, the practical reality and belief of General Mosquito, as Mr. Asiedu-Nketia is popularly known, then it matters little to absolutely nothing whether the Independent Electoral Commission gets to compile a new National Biometric Voters’ Register or not. This trend of logic is, by the way, perfectly in synch or consonance with what General Mosquito had to say about the clearly shocking results of the 2012 Presidential Election, as the NDC’s General-Secretary himself confessed to a radio interviewer immediately after Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the extant Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), declared the results of the 2012 Presidential Election in favor of the then-Interim-President John Dramani Mahama.

At the time, General Mosquito sheepishly observed that his party’s boss and then-Interim-President, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, had not carried the vote or the electoral mandate of the people at all, and after all, but that it was clearly the abject lack of vigilance on the part of the polling-booth representatives and assigns of the Main Opposition Leader and Little Dramani’s most formidable challenger, to wit, the then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, that had scandalously resulted in Dr. Afari-Gyan’s rather stunning declaration of the election results in favor of the incumbent.

Well, I have just finished reading a news story in which a Mr. Osei Kwame Griffiths, described as the former Executive-Director of the National Identification Authority (NIA), named to that most sensitive post by former President John Mahama, is reported to have launched a multi-pronged lawsuit challenging not only the right of the IEC to compile a new Parliament-approved National Biometric Voters’ Register, but as well to impugn the credibility and quash the legitimacy of the procurement processes by which materials and equipment for running the 2020 General Election were procured.

The news report, carried by one of the fanatically pro-National Democratic Congress’ newspapers, namely, The Herald, is captioned: “EC Refusing to File Defense Lawsuit Against Voters’ Register” (Ghanaweb.com 5/31/20). It is all too obvious that this is a frivolous lawsuit that is aimed at criminally sabotaging the integrity of Ghana’s democratic cultural dispensation and system. But one can be certain, and this is very much in keeping with the ideological purview of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress, that a lot of sheep, goats, yams and cows must have changed hands both prior to and in the wake of the filing of Mr. Griffiths’ very frivolous lawsuit, as then-President John Dramani Mahama and Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas, owner of the Tiger-Eye PI sleuthing company told the rest of the world in the leadup to the 2016 General Election.

All of which makes it, therefore, makes it scarcely surprising that the law-and-order savvy administrators of the Independent Electoral Commission would emphatically decide not to dignify such legal and judicial frivolity with a response that Mr. Griffiths and his sponsors clearly are not entitled to or deserve. We should also quickly point out that as a highly respected authority on Ghana’s 1992 Republican Constitution, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa has few classmates or peers, when it comes to both the professional reading and interpretation of the same, let alone the deft and expert execution of the country’s electoral and election-related procurement process.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

May 31, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]