EC Still Bent On Disenfranchising Over 1million Ghanaians Voters –Mosquito

Over one million eligible voters who might vote at the upcoming District Assembly election and that of the general election in 2020, risked been disenfranchised by the Electoral Commission, General Secretary of the National DemocraticCongress, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has said.

According to the NDC scribe popularly known as "General Mosquito," the choice of the Electoral Commission to open registration centres at the 250 District capitals instead of the polling stations for the limited voter registration exercise ahead of the local assembly polls, would affect eligible voters, especially those at the remote areas.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah made the observation at a symposium held by the Koforidua Technical University chapter of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN) in the Eastern Region.

Speaking on the theme: ‘Current State of Ghana’ on Friday, 3 May 2019 in the Eastern Region, the NDC General Secretary said the EC is “going to conduct an election and you [EC] are enjoined by the Constitution to make sure that every Ghanaian of 18 years and above is registered and would have the opportunity to cast their ballot. Then you intentionally developed a system which will disenfranchise a minimum of 1 million voters, and we are all quiet in this country. Where are we heading?”

He argued that,“Before we undertake any registration exercise of voters in Ghana, the first thing you do is since you are going to register human beings of a certain age, the Electoral Commission is not mandated as an institution to make pronouncement of how many Ghanaians are of this age, the institution that does that is the Statistical Service of Ghana – …write to the Statistical Service [and find out] how many Ghanaians are of 18 years and above as of today, and they’ll give you the figures”.

“Even if you go by the most conservative estimate and you assume that nobody grew, all our ages were stagnant at some point in time or nobody gave birth in this country, at least between 2016 and 2019, a period of 3 years, can’t you get one million people who have entered the 18-year group?” he wondered.

Asiedu Nketiah alleged that “Jean Mensa wants us to accept that the number of Ghanaians who have entered the 18-year group and above is 300,000 in three years, so, this type of mathematics can only happen under Nana Akufo-Addo’s government.”

He urged Ghanaians to be worry as the current EC Boss and her deputies sought to distal listed the country electoral process for reasons best known to them.