EC seeking to use Ghana Card as ‘political tool’ to disenfranchise Ghanaians – Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama says the Electoral Commission is seeking to use the Ghana Card as a political tool to frustrate Ghanaians in their quest to secure voters Card for the next elections.

According to him, the Commission is one of many state agencies that have become pliant instruments in the advancement of the parochial interest of the Akufo-Addo administration.

“One such institution is the Electoral Commission, which instead of making it easy for our citizens to take part in elections, rather takes delight in making it difficult. They appear determined to ensure the disenfranchisement of sections of our population at all costs through a misguided insistence on the use of the Ghana Card as the only source of identification for a voter card.

“How do you do this, knowing that the Ghana Card is not available to everyone who should have one? The Ghana Card is a relatively new feature of our national life and has its merits in the scheme of things. At the moment, it is being brandished more as a political tool around which all manner of schemes is being fashioned towards elections. There is the need to allow sufficient time for its full integration into our way of life before this kind of unhelpful exclusion of all other legitimately acquired, credible and time-tested forms of identification are implemented,” Mr Mahama said during a speech at the closing ceremony of a Minority caucus workshop.

He stressed: “The National Identification Authority cannot claim to have covered every Ghanaian who should be registered or distributed all the cards printed to those who have been captured in their system. They have failed to distribute hundreds of thousands of cards to people who have registered. Until full and total coverage is achieved in the roll out of the Ghana Card, room must be made for those who are yet to be served, to exercise their democratic rights of voting. They cannot be excluded from the voter register due to no fault of theirs”.

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