In the frustration of many to understand the current economic hardships as a result of the inept and the alleged corrupt administration of President Mahama’s NDC, which was given legitimacy by the seemingly arbitrary verdict of the Justice Atuguba led Supreme Court panel, accusing fingers are pointed towards the ordinary Ghanaian voter who bears the difficulty in the nation for voting for the NDC.
The real victims of the administration are sometimes portrayed as the wrongdoers, choosing the government they wanted and deserved. This way of arguing is a subtle evasion of the issue and responsibility by the very people the ordinary voter had reposed confidence. Who will take responsibility for, identify and confront the issues that resulted in one of the defective voter registers and the electoral fraud in history?
The evidence put forward in court largely supported the view that the election was rigged even though the Justice Atuguba panel reached a different verdict to a national disappointment and frustration.
Let's not continue to shift blame on the ordinary Ghanaian who woke up on the faithful 7 December 2012 and voted with enthusiasm with the ultimate aim of changing the widely alleged corrupt and inept NDC government only to wake up the next day to be told that his or her vote had been neutralised by an outrageous number of invincible voters made possible by our surrender to a system little was known about.
The ordinary Ghanaian was made to believe that the 2012 election was going to be free and fair because there were about three stages of voter identification. Only to be told in court that some voters did not even pass through one level of identification.
The ordinary Ghanaian was made to understand that rigging in the 2012 election could never happen because we'd procured a biometric voter register, double registration was an impossibility, yet we obtained a register with over 13million registered voters out of a national population of less than 26 million people.
We were made to believe that the system could prevent multiple voting yet the system was not networked. The traditional indelible ink could have done better, given value for money and to a larger extent the ideal of one man one vote.
We touted, shouted, hyped and nearly romanticised the need for the biometric register. We succeeded creating a sense of hope in the fairness and integrity of the electoral process. We went to sleep early in our forced belief that we'd created and put into effective a fault-free electoral system, only to wake up to seek justice in the court having awakened from our sleep with the reality of the matchless electoral fraud in the history of our nation at this age and time.
We hastily surrendered our faith to an electoral technology little was known about. I dare suggest that the biometric register was and is one of the useless and kneel-jerk approaches to the challenges we face. Little insight was exercised regarding its feasibility. We were consumed by the theoretical effectiveness of the system but not its practicality given our unique environment.
Notwithstanding its monumental failure, the threat of war and Ghana’s nose-dive nearly into disorder due to the system’s failure. It’s nearly two years after the elections, a year after the revelations of the sham, inefficiency and the joke of the system at the Supreme Court, yet little insight, research and questions are being ask going into the future without repetition.
We hear people making all kinds of argument why the NPP lost including the most strange and illogical: The Ghanaian voter voted for the NDC and deserves the heartless and corrupt administration. Such argument shoot all those who believe the election was rigged in the foot.
Let’s take responsibility for our contribution towards the use of the electoral system that failed us. Let us appraise what we did, did not do, ought to have done and have to do if we are to save Ghana from another electoral sham and the NPP from serial electoral defeats.
We’re not a Church, we should fight to manifest on earth success and economic salvation of the Ghanaian through electoral victories. Let’s confront the issues we face. Leadership matters but no candidate can do it with the same flawed and corrupt system.
Ghana does not deserve the NDC but for the flawed electoral system and our lack of insight. Who is ready to take candid responsibility?
Yaw Awuah Boadu Ayeboafo, [email protected], Tepa-Ashanti