The General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has accused the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), of preventing northerners from transferring their votes to strongholds of the NPP in the on-going vote transfer exercise.
According to him, the act is an orchestrated attempt by the NPP to disenfranchise northerners and all other persons perceived to be supporting the NDC in the December polls.
Johnson Asiedu, popularly known as General Mosquito, made the allegation when he was speaking on a local radio station W.FM at Wa in the Upper West Region, as part of his working visit to the Upper West Region.
“The fact that a Northerner has decided to relocate to the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti or Eastern Region, does not mean that his civic rights should be taken away from him,” he said.
“That is why when we are registering people for elections, the biggest battle we fight with the NPP is that, those in smock are aliens and they should not be allowed to register anywhere in the south. Even the transfer of votes now, the northerners who happen to be plying their trades in Brong Ahafo and other areas, the challenges they are facing now in transferring their votes to where they have decided to live is now a big problem,“ he added.
“And it is your party people who are preventing them from registering thinking that because they have taken a decision to relocate to areas they were not born from, it is a crime and they must be denied their civic right of participating in voting,” General Mosquito continued.
Asiedu Nketia was also worried that, some chiefs have allowed themselves to be used by the NPP to prosecute the agenda.
“NPP thinks that in collaboration with some chiefs, they must determine how the northerners living on their lands should vote and they have the courage to make public announcement that ‘this is my village, and anybody who lives here, if NPP doesn’t win here we will drive you away and take your land,” he noted.
“So when you see settlers all over the country trouping to vote for the NDC, it is not about tribalism, it is about they moving to a system which will give them their civic rights.”
He further assured supporters of the NDC that, their leadership is working hard to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey and Latif Mahama/Citifmonline.com/Ghana