A coalition of Northern Savannah Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) has expressed disappointment in Parliament for approving C.I. 126 paving the way for the law governing elections in Ghana to be amended to restrict identification documents to only Ghana card and passport.
The coalition accused the legislators of failing to protect the interest of their constituents.
The group at a press conference in Tamale said the new amendment means that many people will be disenfranchised because they will not be able to make time to queue to register for the Ghana card.
“We are highly disappointed in our elected representatives because the adoption of the CI 126 by the House has now cleared the way for only the Ghanaian passport and the National Identification Authority (NIA) cards to be used as basic documents to prove a person’s citizenship for the registration of the new voter’s card,” the group said at the press conference.
“We are extremely worried because the people who will be greatly affected by this latest development in terms of threats to their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote are those of us in the five regions in Northern part of Ghana. This is because the 50% of our registrable population could not register for the NIA cards and therefore have to go through very stressful conditions at the expense of farming activities and terrible COVID 19 pandemic to get the few numbers that had the cards to vouch for us”, the group further stated.
The Coalition is the latest to join the calls against the EC’s proposal to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 election.
“This coalition is not against the compilation of the new voter register. What we are simply saying is that looking at the number of people from the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone, over 77% of people who have attained 18 years and above were not able to register for the Ghana card, and those that were able to register, we only have about 22% of them that got the cards,” Executive Secretary of the Coalition, Bismarck Adongo Ayorogo argued.
“Now if we are to proceed with what the EC plans to do, it means these huge numbers will have to pass through stressful and frustrating conditions to be able to get these people to guarantee for us to register and vote,” Bismarck Adongo Ayorogo, concluded.
Richard Zangba, a spokesperson of the coalition, called on the Electoral Commission to respect the enviable position Ghana has earned in the sub-region with regard to election management.
“If we do not get a favourable response from the EC, we would consider its action as well calculated attempt to put its ‘knee on our neck’ and will, therefore, explore available means to engage further actions to ensure our demands are met”, the group stated.
