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Editorial: EC Ready For A Buhari Register For Ghana ?

By The Punch Newspaper
Editorial Editorial: EC Ready For A Buhari Register For Ghana ?
JUN 24, 2020 LISTEN

A Buhari register is the kind of a gerrymandered register that deliberately depopulates or makes it difficult certain already registered voters, to register to have their names on a new voters register.

This is what is largely believed to have happened during the second term bid of General Muhammad Buhari in Nigeria when the odds were heavily stacked against him. He is said to have lobbied the so-called Independent Electoral Commission to have gotten rid of the existing voters register and come up with an entirely new and manipulated one to secure a win for him.

The eventual outcome of that Presidential election ended up in court. Looking at the posturing of certain persons, with regard to Ghana’s next general elections, it won't be far -fetched to conclude that they are being plodded to someone's bidding.

So far the Electoral Commission (EC) has not done anything to cement the fact that they are indeed an independent body whose only interest is to organize and supervise a free, fair and intimidation free election for all political parties to advance the frontiers of democracy. At one stage they said someone's grinning was offensive to the Chair of the Commission.

In another instance, they will be hiding their real intent in coming out with a new voters register by not tabling it as a main item or agenda for discussion but as an Any Other Business (AOB).Haba!!!.

As if struck by Gbese- apologies to a former Attorney General of Ghana, a Deputy Commissioner of the EC actually described the NDC which has assumed the reins of power far more than the rest of the political parties combined, as being a disgrace to Ghana's democracy. Could you imagine that? A referee for a titanic match between Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko describing Kotoko, the Porcupine Warriors in those terms? The immediate reaction from Kotoko would be to ask for a replacement of that referee and it would be granted. But who will do that to the offending person serving as a deputy EC commissioner?

The ruling party will not even allow that to happen. They will only attempt to bicker while in opposition. So there we are. The stakes have been raised so high yet the EC position on whether or not the nation must have a new voters register does not seem convincing unless it was for an ulterior and self-serving motive other than the national weal or national interest.

The reason is that if the current register was able to elect a President who beat his major opponent with a whopping 9.5 per cent of valid votes cast why can't the same register be used to repeat that same or higher phenomenal magic!. Something really doesn't add up. Let's wake up. Ghana belongs to us all.

Source: The Punch Newspaper

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