Electoral commission wants to crawl at the age of 20yrs!!!

In the life of every human-being, progression is very much essential and inevitable. So for example, if a baby is delivered through the normal process and he/she happens to be very healthy at the point of delivery but continues to crawl after 10-yers of being here on earth, then there is a very serious problem.
Such a child could be suffering from some childhood conditions which are commonly associated with stunted growth and general child-hood underdevelopment. And when issues about stunted growth in children are put on the table, easy culprit that readily comes into focus in our Ghanaian context is the almighty ‘korshioko’.This is mainly because, this internationally accepted medical condition is said to have been discovered by a Ghanaian who in my thinking, is probably an indigene of the Ga state.
However, aside a condition of ‘korshiokor’ is others like diphtheria, whooping-cough, diarrhea, miseals and so on that have the potential of making the growth of children stunted. It is in the light of this, that, it is incumbent upon every parent to critically observe the development of their children in all areas so that correction can be made, timeously, in order to prevent any unforeseen occurrence that might bring about wailing and gnashing of teeth in the home as a result of premature loss of life from any of these childhood killer disease.
Today, Ghana is seen across the globe as an oasis of peace in a sub-region of total chaos. These problems are being created by power-drunk dinosaurs and despotic military non-entities that have stripped-off their tattered military uniforms and decorated themselves with pseudo-egalitarianism. These people are motivated by nothing except naked greed and myopic desire to enhance economic fortunes of their family and close associates.
Ghana’s democratic credential
Ghana’s credential as masters of democracy certainly did not come about on a silver-platter. We have certainly had our difficulties as regards military dictatorship and other democratic leaders clothed in long robes of dictatorial tendencies. But through it all, we have been able to survive and today Ghana is still on her feet as one solid nation with relatively united citizenry even-though we often do engage one-another in hot political debates. It is for this reason that whenever people want to discuss an issue without being caught up in a web of empty noise making, you will often hear “don’t let us bring politics into this”.
It is evidently clear to every Ghanaian alive today, that matters of political nature always send people’s adrenalin boiling and for us to keep the sanctity and total cohesion of our nation on track, it is very much incumbent upon all of us, as Ghanaians and our institutions charged with the responsibilities of discharging duties that have to do with political destiny of our nation, to be very much conscious of the fact that any kind of irresponsibity,incompetence,complacency and plain-faced ‘kuluulu’ antics before and during 2012 general elections will inevitably send us on a path of apocalyptic civil strife.
Our nation’s electoral system under the stewardship of Dr.Kojo Afari-Gyan, has gained enormous amount of respect across the globe. Our nation’s experience in this area has been tapped into by other African nations. This is why the shambolic nature of the recent district assembly elections has got me seriously thinking.
NDC questioned EC’s credibility in 2008
In 2008, the EC, in preparation towards the December general elections, put in place many measures. One of this was upgrading of the electoral register. After the compilation, copies were given to all the contesting political parties. And as the list was being perused by the parties, it was found out that there had been some discrepancies.
Now, irrespective of the fact that the master list which contained the correct number of registered voters still existed at the constituencies, and therefore, there was absolutely no cause for alarm, the power hungry NDC jumped upon it and accused the sitting government and EC of being on cow-hoot to rig the elections. The issue became a topic for discussion over months and irrespective of all tangible explanations given by the EC,the NDC stuck to their guns and consistently shouted from the roof-tops, the probability of Ghana going the way of Kenya,Liberia,Cote d’Ivore,Afghanistan,Iraq, and so on.
The purchase of materials for the EC to carry out the elections, also, became a source of agitation by the NDC. The government, for the sake of transparency, wanted a body to be set up to oversee the purchase of materials in order to prevent leakages and waste. Here too, the NDC was up-in-arms about who and how the purchases must be done. The idea was therefore shelved and the EC given the free hand to do all the purchases.
The police service came up with a plan as to how they were going to ensure the security of all Ghanaians before, during and after the elections. And here too, the NDC was up in arms against the idea with a complain that the police was going to deploy only NPP sympathizers within their fold to polling stations and therefore demanded to be supplied with names and identity numbers of all personnel who were going to be involved in that exercise. The police service found that request extremely preposterous and fittingly threw it into the dust-bin.
Even on the day of election, the NDC organized a mid-night press-conference to accuse EC and the government for conspiring to rig the elections, at the time results from the constituencies had not started coming in. Now, when results started trickling in and they thought things were not going their way, they called on their now fooled-soldiers to besiege the environs of EC wielding murder weapons.
The result was finally declared in their favour. And today, they have become bloated like dead frogs, as a result of easy access to state coffers and all manner of fat-flying brown envelopes.
Now, our EC is an experienced one and there are certain conducts which must definitely not be coming from them. The stature of Dr. Afari-Gyan and his boys is what I would liken to that of a healthy baby that has been fed with nutritious food and is therefore expected to experience a normal growth. And haven been fed for all these years and Ghanaians therefore expect them to exhibit signs of maturity, they certainly cannot afford to send our trust in their capabilities out of the window in 2012.
EC wants to crawl instead of walking
The EC is about 18-years old. In life, a normal 18-year old would possibly be a first year university student.So, if such a person suddenly goes dump and starts crawling, it will certainly arouse amazingly high level of curiosity amongst his fellow students while the parents will definitely suffer shock.
On 30th December, 2010, I saw and heard Mr. Christian Owusu-Pare (EC’s acting PRO) on ‘7-GMT’ on TV-3 making a confessing that his outfit “had just 3-weeks” within which “to print” the voluminous “ballot papers and distribute them to the regions”. The fact is, cash was certainly not released to them on time because if that had not been the case, the EC wouldn’t have waited till that late.
However, the EC persistently denied being starved of funds. With this development, the EC has ended up portraying itself as a matured and experienced individual that has suddenly been afflicted by some strange ‘korshiokor’ and has started crawling, by allowing itself to be used as a façade for Mills-Mahama administration’s palpable incompetence and diabolic hidden intentions towards the December elections.

It is for this reason that the shambolic nature EC conducted the district level elections must be a great source of worry to all. But rather ironically, the NDC that was vehemently opposing every action of the EC during the Kufuor administration has today made a complete u-turn and staunchly defending every single flaw of the EC.

Now, if NDC is nursing any idea of deliberately starving the EC of needed resources, to enable them carry out their constitutionally mandated work within the stipulated time-table, only to turn round and defend them (EC) , then they (NDC) must be prepared for ‘mother of all battles’ as the late Saddam Hussein told the Americans. And here one may say; but the Americans succeeded in overthrowing saddam.Well, that is certainly true but has the Americans won the war?

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei
E-mail: [email protected]