The members of the Coalition for Defense for Equal Citizenship (CODEC) are presently on a peaceful march through the streets of Accra to correct what they describe as untruths being circulated by the New Patriotic Party (NPP), about the voters’ register.
The NPP has petitioned the Electoral Commission over the current electoral register which it claims is bloated and therefore lacked credibility.
The party’s 2016 running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at a presentation also alleged that there were names of about 80,000 Togolese nationals on the electoral roll.
But CODEC believes the claim by the NPP that Togolese nationals are on the nation’s electoral roll cannot be the basis for the entire register to be discarded.
The spokesperson for CODEC, Edudzi Kudzo Tameklo told Citi News “the basic reason for this peaceful march is to draw further awareness to certain constitutional principles one relating to the independence of the Electoral Commission (EC).”
“We have also realized that a lot of information has been churned out into the public domain, one being the fact that the flagbearer of the NPP, had indicated, when he addressed the Heritage foundation that the whole country is clamoring for a new voters register, we think that that position is not entirely correct, ” he said.
Edudzi Kudzo Tameko also hinted that the move will be replicated in other parts of the country,
“The next step is that having finished with the Greater Accra region, we will have another in the Northern regional capital and then from there go to the Volta region. So it is going to be a series of this one to continue the awareness creation,” he said.
Meanwhile the Greater Accra regional Police command has assured of its preparedness to provide adequate security to the protestors.
ASP Afia Tenge is the greater Accra Police PRO,
“The Police is going to guard them through the routes we have agreed with them, which is the usual traditional routes we all know, we are also cautioning that the police will be there in our numbers and we are going to ensure that people go through the approved routes as we have agreed upon,” she said.
She further said, “…any act or whatever that we (protestors) are going to disagree with the route will not be countenanced.”
Let My Vote Count Protest
A similar protest over the need for a new voter’s register was embarked on by pro-opposition group, Let My Vote Count Alliance in September.
The group had initially planned to submit a petition to the Electoral Commission outlining their arguments for the current electoral roll to be replaced with a new one.
But the protest was truncated when the police alleged some of the protestors veered off the approved routes.
Let My Vote Count has since submitted a petition to the United Nations seeking that the appropriate sanctions are meted onto the perpetrators of what they refer to as inhumane treatment.
EC’s response to voters’ register
The Electoral Commission has since accepted petitions from the various political parties on their respective positions concerning the new voter’s register.
Meanwhile a five-member panel comprising a former commissioner of the EC, Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe is set to meet the major political parties later this week over their arguments for or against a new voters register.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citifmonline.com/Ghana