EC Officials Must Inform And Not Misinform Ghanaians

The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has called on Officials of the Electoral Commission to inform rather than misinform Ghanaians about the on-going Biometric Registration exercise.

NUGS made this call in relation to an incident which occurred at the University of Ghana Legon Hall Registration Centre on April 12 where some students who were trying to register, were turned down by EC officials for not possessing their old voter’s card.

The EC earlier advertised that Ghanaians who do not possess a passport, driver’s licenses, National Identification Card or the old voter identification card, could get two other people who knows them to guarantee them to register. The EC’s rules and regulations stipulated that an individual could guarantee for only five people and not more than that.

According to a statement issued by NUGS, all attempts to have two people to guarantee for the Legon students proved futile.

The EC officials, as narrated in the statement, noted that the two people who are supposed to verify for anyone with a missing voter card are to testify whether one is sane, within and beyond the threshold of eighteen (18) and whether one is a resident of the area and not to stand in for the missing voter card.

The Student Union therefore in the statement said it finds it very disastrous and would endanger trouble if the Electoral Commission does not call its men and women to order.

"NUGS is also by this statement, appealing to the EC to solve the problem of communication which is blurring the quality of information given to the public,” the statement further read.

"We are also calling on all Ghanaians to report any official of the Electoral Commission who provides contrary opinions with regards to the exercise thereby disenfranchising people for punishments to be meted out to them. It is only by some of this act that our democracy gets strengthened.”