The onset limited voters registration exercise has vindicated the NDC party and exposed the incompetent and inept nature of Mrs. Jean Mensah as well as the looseness and laxity in the organizational structure of the Electoral commission as the registration exercise is rocked with a lot of challenges in the Bono East enclave.
The first day of the limited voters registration exercise has ended and issues emanating from the various registration centres across the region has really exposed the chairperson of the electoral commission Madam Jean Mensah as being inept, incompetent and heartless as far as the modus operandi of handling the electoral process is concern.
The arrogant and unrepentant posture of Mrs Jean Mensah is what has brought us this far and if something is not being done immediately to curb what has happened today at almost all the Registration centers across the country most especially in the Bono East Region, then disaster awaits us, as the target she has set cannot be achieved as we the NDC had earlier on predicted.
Having carefully monitored and studied what happened today, at the various registration centers in Bono East, it clearly shows the EC is doing the bidding of President Akufo Addo and his uninspiring and hopeless NPP administration, instead of the state which will in the end increase the suspicion and heighten tension among the civil and political class, there by setting the grand stage for gerrymandering, acrimony, and political instability in the country come 2020.
Why on earth, should the EC after submitting their budget estimate to parliament for approval and our parliamentarians approved such special budget for the commission to conduct the limited voters registration exercise in all the over 29,000 polling station and over 6,000 electoral areas across the country is now using the back door to reduce the Polling stations and electoral areas to about 5% of what was approved and giving Ghanaians flimsy and useless excuses as justification for conducting the limited voters registration exercise at their district offices and some few designated polling station in some electoral areas, instead of sticking to the statusquo of the originally approved polling stations across the country.
The E C has abandoned its own initial plan after refusing to listen to sound council and expect advice towards the conduct of the limited voters registration exercise, which has left the
exercise in complete shambles across the country with Bono East among the most affected regions.
It will be recalled that, the EC per their own arrangement, states that, their offices would be using online registration while the out stations would be doing the registration offline to which we have our own reservation towards the said arrangement, but our monitoring team has uncovered that, all the centers are registering voters offline in almost all the registration centers across the Bono East Region.
Also, some of the registration machines print out, comes with different date on it as if the registration has taken place a day before. Now the question is, why should you print a document today and it gives you the date of the previous day. This happened at Zabrama Registration center in the Pru West Constituency. Five people were registered and each and every one of them has a different date, which is 14th, 15th, and 16th June 2019 respectively, meanwhile the registration started today which is 17th of June 2019.
The mind boggling question is, has the E C tempered with the registration kits and used some of them yesterday before the start of registration today?.
Moreover, Some of the printers being used, do not work at all, and some machines cannot even work for an hour, without breaking down until it is being transported to a different constituency before it could be fix. In Atebubu Amanten Constituency, Places like Nyomoasi and Garadima registration center which is earmarked to serve over 20 and 15 communities respectively suffered damage and had to be brought to Atebubu for repair before it could be sent back to those centers for usage. Some had to be carried from Pru East and West, Sene East and West to Atebubu for repairs. Imagine the precious time people will waste, and the frustrations they will go through waiting for those machines to be brought back after repairs.!
This and other factors has made some of the registration centers recording low registration despite the huge turn out, whiles others(registration kits) did not work today at all. Nsuoano and Miawani registration centers in the Kintampo North Constituency recorded Zero(0)and One (1) respectively, How can a whole registration center starts work from morning to evening only to record Zero or One? as newly potential registrant had invaded their various centers wanting to be registered.
The EC should stop giving us flimsy excuses which includes network problem, they should have known better the repercussions of what is going to happened after refusing to heed to sound council.
As the Great Nigerian Poet, writer and Nobel Peace winner China Achebe said ” the death that will kill a man begins as an appetite”, if Mrs Jean Mensah and her team at the E C do not swallow their pride and soberly reflect on these electoral lapses as a result of her incompetence, Ghanaians will not forgive her and the NPP government for deliberately disenfranchising them come 2020 elections.
Thank you.
Mohammed Shamsudeen Ali
Regional Secretary, Bono East
Nana Agyei Dwumor
Regional Communication Officer Bono East
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