NDC membership registration: We’ll not accept defectors now – Koku Anyidoho

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has served notice it will not welcome defectors into the party no matter how huge their numbers are, until the party has completed registration of its members across the country.

According to the party, it will be foolhardy on its part to admit any supposed defector into its fold at this crucial time, following its experience with its biometric registration which saw then members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) being registered onto the NDC’s voters album.

Barring any hitches, the NDC is expected to commence a nationwide registration of its members in the next few weeks as materials for the registration, which is to be done manually after the party had abandoned its biometric exercise, are said to be ready.

The Prof. Kwesi Botchwey election review committee had recommended the scrapping of the biometric register because of its fraudulent nature.

The NDC has conceded that its biometric register, lacks integrity and credibility and therefore cannot be relied upon for any meaningful internal elections. They then decided to do away the register – which was compiled ahead of the 2016 general election – and start a new process of registering NDC members manually.

For instance, the Eastern regional secretariat of the NDC ahead of the 2016 election revealed that a total of 6,190 non-NDC members who registered during the party’s biometric voters registration had been expunged from the Voters’ register.

These aliens believed to be members of the New Patriotic Party were identified during the exhibition of the party’s register and it was believed that their mission was to ostensibly vote against President John Mahama in the general elections.

Speaking on Okay FM, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Koku Anyidoho stated that the party has learnt its lesson and will not leave any room for non-party members to infiltrate the NDC’s camp.

“Few months after the December 2016, why will someone want to defect from the ruling NPP to the NDC? Any person who has such intention should take his time, we the NDC are not admitting defectors into our party at this time that we’re just about registering our members.

Any potential defector should wait until the NDC is done with its registration then the party can organize a ceremony and welcome that person. But no defector will be admitted into the NDC and find him or herself on the party’s register, that will never happen. We’ve learnt from our mistakes.”