AN OBUASI Magistrate Court has sentenced a 36-year-old illegal miner to prison custody for attempting to register more than once in the ongoing biometric registration exercise.
Akwasi Agyakum, a resident of Adansi Akrokerri in the Ashanti Region , first registered on March 31, 2012 at the Akrokerri's chief palace registration centre F021201 with age 36.
On April 27, the convict attempted registering for the second time at the Akrokerri social centre (F021204), a different registration centre, with age 35 where he was identified as a registrant after the electronic gadget detected him.
The Obuasi Municipal Police Commander, DSP Mathew Asante, told DAILY GUIDE the vigilance of the electoral officers led to the arrest of the suspect, who worked as a labourer at galamsey sites.
Akwasi Agyakum was convicted on his plea to the charge of registering more than once, contrary to section 27(b) C1.72 of the Public Election regulation 2012.
The magistrate, Eric Danning, accordingly sentenced him to 14 days in prison in hard labour.
The convict claimed in an interview with DAILY GUIDE that he lost his voter ID card after attending a funeral at Jacobu the following day after the first registration.
According to him, he had put the card in his pocket before attending the funeral after it was handed over to him.
Even though he was not sure where the voter card got missing, Agyakum speculated that it might have got lost when he was intoxicated.
The convict feigned ignorance of the law barring any person from engaging in multiple registrations, asserting, 'I have no idea or heard any announcement or advertisement warning people against the offence.'
But the police commander said the claim of Akwasi Agyakum could not be wholly true, and that he was among a good number of people who believed the biometric machine could not be trusted to detect multiple registrations and therefore tried to test the system.
DSP Asante cautioned people with similar motives to desist from the act or face the wrath of the law since the police were wide awake to deal with any infraction against the law.
He also warned hoodlums perpetrating violence at registration centres to refrain from such misbehaviour for their own good.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Obuasi
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