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06.12.2015 Feature Article

Re: Demonising the EC After Defeat

Re: Demonising the EC After Defeat
06.12.2015 LISTEN

I have read two very interesting headlines on GhanaWeb today 6th December 2015. The one quoted above. Supposedly made by a “Security Expert” and the article with the headline, “Why are Ghanaians Scared of Their Highly Educated Ones?” by the prolific writer, Rockson Adofo

Mr Adofo makes a punchy statement at the beginning of his interesting article, “In Ghana, it is a sad tradition that when one is educationally highly qualified, possessing especially, a Doctorate degree (PhD), those either less qualified or are without any formal education tend to be scared of them. The highly qualified individuals do usually have less respect for their compatriots who could not make it up to the same rung of education ladder as them.”

The writer then goes on to essentially that like the great Kwegyir Aggrey’s “black and white key board” analogy, society needs every member, no matter how lowly their estate may be, to make meaningful progress. In fact, it is said that “the speed of a convoy is judged by its slowest coach and in a chariot by its slowest horse.”

That is why in the scriptures, St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:22-26, “No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, on these we bestow greater honour; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honour to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.”

Unfortunately, much of the negative things the writer said about the “highly educated” in Ghanaian society is true. People in society especially with the title “Dr” behave like demi-gods these days, and this at a time when that title can be purchased on the internet for a song. But even more sadly, many Ghanaian PhD holders have been spewing a lot of garbage in the print media and airwaves lately. The headline attributed to our PhD “security expert” is one such bunkum.

Was our security guru in Ghana between January and August 2013? Did he by any chance watch any of the proceedings of the 2012 Election Petition hearing? Has he read the written judgements of all the Supreme Court judges?

The Electoral Commission of Ghana is one of the most expensive institutions of our nascent democracy. Just imagine the Commission buying very expensive biometric identification equipment (much of it probably at inflated prices), only for the poor Ghanaian taxpayer to discover on election day that thousands of those “new” equipment do not function. And this, our security guru does not think Ghanaians have reason to complain about?

The criminality of the duplicated and manufactured polling stations apart, the Chairman of the Commission, another of our “esteemed PhD holders”, a man who claims to have been involved in elections for over twenty-five years, went to the Supreme Court and claimed under oath, that he was not too clear in his mind what over-voting was? Together with international donors, the poor Ghanaian taxpayer forked out millions to resource the Commission, only for it to turn round and employ stark illiterates and rogues, people who could not count up to two hundred, people who thought 270 in words, is written as “twenty-seven zero!”

In simple arithmetical terms, much of the data in the Election 2012 results that have been put on the Commission’s own website do not make sense. Even if all the non-NDC voters who voted in the Parliamentary Election were to vote for John Mahama in the presidential election, there was no way the presidential candidate of the NDC could have garnered over 500,000 more votes than all the NDC MPs’ votes put together.

The General Secretary of the NDC who also claimed to have been involved in Elections for over three decades, told the Supreme Court under oath, that when at a polling station there are more votes in the ballot box than the number of registered voters at the station, the remainder is “foreign material.”

When the Electoral Commission puts out such nonsense that have the potential to destabilise a country, a PhD “security expert” believes people who complain about such things are crying wolf?

As a Christian, I believe in a God who gives us humans a long rope, hoping that we shall repent, and mend our ways. Sometimes, as we remain recalcitrant, the Lord sheds small rays of light in our dealings. Atuguba’s bumbling delivery to the whole world apart, the ace investigative journalists, Anas’ exposure of the fact that Ghana’s judiciary is full of rogues and scumbags, who sell justice in exchange for goats, yams and body massage, has made it succinctly plain to Ghanaians why for the crucial elections of 2012, we should ensure that we have not just a credible electoral register, but an Electoral Commission that is staffed by decent human beings and not goats and cows!

In comparison with Nigeria’s National Elections of 2015, as far as its sheer mind-boggling logistic requirements and organisation go, ours are like the Junior Common Room (JCR) elections of the Ghanaian universities of the 1970s. If another Nigerian PhD has been able to accomplish that to near perfection, then there is no earthly reason why Ghanaians cannot expect, in fact, demand decent preparation towards decent Elections in 2016.

In recent months there have been reasonably proven allegations that the names of foreigners have been fraudulently inserted in our national electoral register. Then the names of prominent opposition party executive members were discovered in the NDC’s private party register. These are national security documents to which only the National Electoral Commission of Ghana should have access, which seems to be completely compromised. If a PhD security expert does not recognise that the Electoral Commission poses the most serious security threat to the country, then I make bold to suggest that our education system has fallen to such pits that the system does not deserve one more cedi of the proceeds of my poor father’s cocoa farms.

Remember, next time we may not have a Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey overseeing things elsewhere!

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