Following the order by the Supreme Court of Ghana for the Electoral Commission (EC) to expunge the names of all voters who used their NHIS cards to register to vote in the lead-up to Election 2012, a prominent Accra-based lawyer cum radio-and-television program host has noted that no law currently exists in the country’s statute books that clearly delineates how such nominal expurgations or deletions are to be effected (See “No Law Exists for Expunging ‘NHIS Voters’ – Anyenini” Classfmonline.com / Modernghana.com 5/20/16).
According to Mr. Samson Lardy Anyenini, however, in the lead-up to Election 2012, a Legal Instrument called Constitutional Instrument 72, or CI 72, existed for the express purpose of legitimizing the use of the National Health Insurance Scheme/Authority cards as an acceptable proof of citizenship, thus enabling prospective voters who used their NHIS cards at the designated registration centers to register to vote. If the preceding observation has validity, then it stands to reason that another Constitutional Instrument similar to CI 72 could be immediately created to facilitate the decontamination of the current National Voters’ Register.
It would be equally interesting to hear what Ms. Georgina Opoku-Amankwaa, the Deputy Electoral Commission Chair who signed off on the press release in which the EC sophistically attempts to obstruct justice by imperiously presuming to overrule the Wood Supreme Court, has to tell Ghanaians about the Legal Instrument that authorized the so-called Independent Electoral Commission to change the logo, or coat-of-arms, of the statutory institution of which she is the second-in-command.
If, as we are being made to understand, absolutely no law exists presently for the deletion of the names of even minors, the deceased and foreigners who may have been illegally registered to vote, then, of course, all the pontifical statements that the EC’s Board of Commissioners (BoC) or top administrators have been publicly making, to the effect of being determined to “disinfect” or clean up the current National Voters’ Register, have been flagrantly devoid of good faith.
In such a situation, all justice- and democracy-loving Ghanaian citizens have only two options open to them in the lead-up to the 2016 general election, namely, either to lamely accept the current National Voters’ Register, which the Supreme Court staunchly affirms to be heavily contaminated, or compromised, if not irreparably so; or confront the certain possibility of civil strife. Needless to say, the preceding prediction may not sound very constructive or even reasonable, but it definitely seems to be the only logical and practical means of enforcing the inalienable will and right of Ghanaian citizens to untainted justice at the polling booth.
We have been forced to arrive at this admittedly most dangerous alternative because recent haughty public pronouncements by both the Chief of the Defense Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, Gen. Oje, and the Inspector-General of the Ghana Police Service, Mr. Kudalor, clearly imply that the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) does not appreciate the use of any other political language, in both the lead-up and wake of Election 2016, than the revolutionary language of an all-out war. And on the latter score, Messrs. Oje and Kudalor have every right to fool themselves into believing that Ghanaians are too docile, timid and addle-brained to fiercely defend their right to be governed by a legitimately and credibly elected leadership.
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