BIOMETRIC REGISTRATION: A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS?

Folks, I have been thinking to myself about the unnecessary brouhaha that has characterized the ongoing biometric registration exercise in my motherland, Ghana. Slowly the muddy pool is turning into a river, what began as a trickle is gradually becoming a flow and may soon turn into a flood if our conscious and concerted effort is not scaled up. During the first phase of the exercise, snippets of reports of confusion and misunderstanding trickled into the media, soon the news of violence and “machomenism” spread across various parts of the country with some shooting and beating incidents. Sadly, the whole process is now tangled in a Gordian knot of confusion, needless mayhem and violence. In the midst of this disgraceful show of sophomoric brute, some self-aggrandizing political cabals have issued threats and counter threats to their political opponents, warning them of bloodshed should they attempt any twist and turn. So I ask myself, when will all these political recriminations cease? When at all will Ghana get something as simple and peaceful as biometric registration right? When will the selfish political kamikazes spare the innocent and peace-loving people of Ghana all their antics and their Gestapo tactics? Registration and voting are civic responsibilities of every patriotic citizen but when citizens are greeted with violence and confusion, it becomes practically impossible for them to exercise these important and inalienable duties.

The process for challenging a suspected alien or minor is plain and simple. The Electoral Commission (EC) has provided challenge forms at registration centers and it is expected that reasonable party agents who are convinced of any person's ineligibility will pick a form and appropriately contest such persons. Is it not shameful that something so fundamental, systematic and brainy has now turned into a brawn and “machomen” have virtually turned themselves into challenge forms, physically and unfathomably preventing responsible citizens from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed responsibility?

Yes, the EC. I have equally been wondering why the EC and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) could do so little about voter education, an aspect so crucial to the whole registration exercise. For the apparent paucity of information, patriotic citizens anxiously rushed to registrations centers eager to get registered, when a simple “wait patiently until the registration team moves to your area” could have prevented the initial mass exodus of people to wrong centers and the concomitant stampede at a single registration center. Couldn't the media also help pro bono? If the media could highlight and importantly educate Ghanaians about the WOYOME saga, and make Woyome a household name, to the extent that even fetuses in their final trimester got a wind of Woyome before their arrival, couldn't they extend an equal measure of generosity to a national assignment as vital as electoral registration? How pathetic that, after investing so much of tax payers' money into the whole electoral process, the EC could only afford a sub-standard registrations kits that could freeze for as long as only God knows, keeping innocent and patriotic citizens in a long queue frustrated and impatient. It has been my strongest conviction (and still is) that the EC should be provided with adequate budgetary support to enable them organize the upcoming elections in a fair, transparent and peaceful manner. The crux of my position, as I have always argued, is that no amount of Ghanaian Cedis can be comparable to a disputed election and post electoral violence. Howbeit, it appears that the EC may have been short-changed by one of these excessively profit-oriented foreign companies (you heard me; I did not say the registration kits are china made).

Distressingly, instead of taking pains to educate their supporters, the political parties are incredibly busy recruiting and training machomen to unleash physical attacks on suspected ineligible individuals. While some have held press conferences to reprehensibly indicate their readiness to hire private security to police registrations centers, others have unequivocally but shockingly declared their willingness to meet their opponent with an equally stern and defiant conflagration. One would have expected that such press conferences could be profitably and judiciously used to inform and educate supporters rather than to call for a needless bloodbath.

Coming events, they say, cast their shadow. The problems of the ongoing registration exercise should be foreshadowing enough for us to put our house in order before December 7. National Peace Council, Civil Society, the Media and all allied organizations should gird their loins and roll up their sleeves to resolve these nauseating challenges before it is too late. We should tout our democratic credentials with cautious optimism—the Malian situation, recent past Ivorian post electoral violence, Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda, all should serve as sign post to direct our electoral affairs as a people. Let us not disproportionately bask in past glories and go to sleep; let us not behave like my beautiful 2-year old daughter who will not miss any opportunity to showcase her newly possessed toy to every visitor to the house. We must always remember that until the rotten tooth is pulled out, the mouth must chew with caution.

“A good speech is like a mini skirt; it should be short to arouse interest but it should be long enough to cover the subject matter”

Adjei Baffour Stephen
[email protected]
www.nanabaffour.webs.com
Thoughts from afar!