AN OPEN LETTER TO JEAN MENSA AND HER EC.
Dear Jean Mensa,
Our democracy is at crossroads and I do not care if this letter finds you well or unwell. This letter will attempt to scratch the collective dead conscience of the number one arbiter of our nascent democracy. It’s about the limited registration for first time voters.
Imagine a first-time voter in Kumbuyili in the remote District of Kumbungu. He or she will have to travel several kilometres to the district office of the Electoral Commission to register for a Voter’s ID card. Engaging in this perilous yet avoidable journey to salvage our democracy comes at a cost. The new voter might need at least 50 cedis to cover the cost of transportation to the district office. They might even need more to feed and water as they stay in winding queues.
Many first-time voters, usually in their last teens or early twenties, are largely unemployed and do not have a penny to embark on this exercise a lot of them consider futile. A few of them might be employed but they certainly will not entertain taking time out of work for obvious reasons. Some prospective new voters, might be by-day workers like Bawumia who are not ready to risk their daily allowances for sheege reasons.
For first timers who have no Ghana card or passport, they will require two guarantors to obtain a voter’s ID card. Jean, it’s rumoured that you’re a lawyer. I believe the rumours because you’ve classmates and you’ve not made a public statement on flood washing away your certificates. So, you should have a better understanding on the guarantor system.
Ideally, your guarantor must know you very well, probably from Adam. Your guarantor should be able to tell if one is circumcised or uncircumcised. If my village is 100 km away from the district office of the EC, I doubt if people in that vicinity will know me much to vouch for me. The EC have stated clearly in their September 11 press release that guarantors can be liable for prosecution. So, it is safe to conclude that a first time voter must travel to the EC district office with his or her guarantors. And that’s another cost in an economy that has been badly destroyed by the mafia dynasty and held to ransom by conniving mambas.
Jean, it is highly immoral that the basic pillar of any meaningful democracy—voting—is subjected to this shame and ridicule. The right to vote is sacrosanct than any other right for all sounded minded people. So, its processes should not be encumbered with deliberate and conscious efforts intended to subject the verdict of the people. Let’s remember that the verdict of the people is the voice of the people and voice of the people is the voice of God. Vox populi; vox dei. The voice of God can never be subverted peacefully.
Our Electoral Commission was a metaphor of the lioness that protected and nurtured its cubs. Today, it has become the cannibalistic chicken that pecks its own. Jean Mensa, the forefathers of Dagboŋ has a saying, “If you’re killed with a lump of cancer, you’re buried with it”. The undemocratic and devilmaycare attitude of the EC has the potential of a bush fire in harmattan. Continue to “yentie o bia” and see.
Jean, every day, you and your commissioners behave as if your tenure is corteminous with Akufo-Addo’s, the Mother Serpent of Corruption according to Martin Amidu. It should not be so. Reassert your independence and do things in the larger interest of Ghanaians, because the so-called human right lawyer of a disappointing president, will leave the Jubilee House with ignominy come 2024.
Jean, you’re a beautiful woman. Do not let any retsnom (anagram intended) to make a monster out of you. God bless our homeland Ghana and make us great and strong to resist the oppressor’s rule.
I will conclude my letter here with a quote from Plato, “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty”.
Yours sincerely,
Hanan-Confidence Abdul
Hse SV 128
Baɣanyanaayili, Savelugu