The retained General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress says demands by the New Patriotic Party flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo for a new voters register was at best unrealistic and at worse illogical.
Johnson Asiedu Nketia said it is not the convention in the country to replace voters register after every decade.
He was speaking to Joy News’ Fred Smith shortly after the party held its first National Executive Council meeting, Tuesday.
The NPP flagbearer had said that for a credible election to be held in 2016, the voters register must be changed.
He was convinced the current voters register is bloated.
According to him, the new voters register figure of 14 million is far in excess of what it should be considering the fact that the 2010 population census captured the total number of Ghana’s population to be 25 million.
But Johnson Asiedu Nketia said the reasons Akufo-Addo gave for a new voters register were untenable.
He said for Nana Addo to compare figures of the 2010 population census to voters register compiled in 2012 “flies in the face of logic.”
“The call is totally baseless,” he said, adding Akufo-Addo “crucified statistics” in his comparison of the 2010 population census to that of the 2012 voters register.
He said between 2010 when the population census was conducted and 2012 when the voters register was compiled a lot may have changed in the population dynamics which makes such a demand a moot one.
He argued further that unlike the population census which was conducted by one institution with an inferior technology, the voters register was compiled by different institutions with a superior biometric technology.
He was convinced that figures from the voters register would be far more reliable than that of the population census which Nana Akufo-Addo made reference to.
He stated emphatically that to compile a new voter register will be a total waste of the country’s meager resources.
