Folks, for the sake of emphasis and special effects, I will crave your indulgence to permit me to recycle portions of my previous articles.
In a particular church, promiscuity and drunkenness was rife among members especially the youth. The Senior Pastor during a Sunday church service, preached: “If I had all the akpeteshie in the world, I’d take them and dump them into the river”. And the congregation cried, “Amen!”
“And if I had all the apio in the world, I’d take them and dump them in the river”. And the congregation cried, “Amen!”
“And if I had all the brukutu and palm wine in the world, I’d take them all and dump them in the river”. Again the congregation cried, “Amen!”
The preacher sat down, and a deacon then stood up and said:
“For our closing hymn, let’s turn to page 126 of our hymn books and
sing, ‘We shall drink from that river'”.
The congregation screamed Halleluyah eiii!
The opposition like the aforementioned congregation is becoming incorrigibly pesky and dangerously unreasonable; and must be ignored by the good people of Ghana. They have rejected all elections in this country except the ones they won. Even though they were in power they alleged that the NDC rigged the 2008 elections under their watch through a voters’ register that was not credible! And there was an attempt to secure an injunction on a weekend from the Supreme Court to obviate the declaration of results.
They later proposed that a biometric technology must be used for the 2012 elections, and government provided 198 million Ghana Cedis for the exercise. During the 2012 elections they never complained about a bloated register; as the results started trickling in from the constituencies, they claimed they had won, I remember their former General Secretary, Sir John asked NPP supporters to dress in white to church to thank God for a landslide electoral victory with a bloated voters’ register! Isn’t it absolutely preposterous? In the end they made Ghana standstill by subjecting the country to a needless 8-month Supreme Court electoral petition case.
The NPP’s raucous call for a new voters’ register based on their wonky claims of a bloated document should not be a surprise at all. That has been the stock-in-trade of the Danquah/Busia Tradition; and as I have intimated earlier, they will never be satisfied with any election result accept victory for them. And such protests were normally characterised with violence. It happened in 1951, 1954 and 1956 when they lost to Dr. Nkrumah’s CPP. Interestingly, all those elections were conducted by our British colonial masters. I can bet with my life-savings that they will never accept defeat in an election even if God is made the Electoral Commissioner!
I totally disagree with former President J.A. Kufour’s call to the EC to listen to the demands of Ghanaians for a new voters’ register. The voice of a demonstration wing of the NPP, Let My Vote Count Alliance, does not represent the voice of the entire nation. It is estimated that over 250 million Ghana Cedis would be needed for a new voters’ register.
The cost of building a CHPS compound with features including a General OPD, Delivery Room, Consulting Rooms, Nurses Station, Labor Ward and accommodation for staff is GHC216,000. By this calculation, the cost of going for a new voters register based on those frivolous excuses could build 1,157 CHPS Compounds. It is estimated that each CHPS compound serves a community of about 5,000 people. This means that 1,157 CHPS Compounds can save the lives of about 5.8 million of our rural folks.
I, therefore, want to point it out to my respected Statesman that the demands of the majority of the people of Ghana is not a new voters’ register, but facilities such as CHPS compounds. What is the guarantee that the NPP after losing the 2016 election will not demand another new register for the 2020 elections, rendering this whopping sum of money wasteful?
