Ongoing registration can’t guarantee credible voter register – Hassan Ayariga

The Leader of the All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has described the ongoing voter registration exercise as a fanfare that cannot guarantee a credible voter register for the upcoming general elections.

Mr. Hassan Ayariga said this in the Upper East Region after registering for his voter Identification card together with his wife.

The APC founder and leader was led by regional and constituency executives of the party to the Tinsongo registration centre in the Bawku Central Constituency.

Speaking to Citi News after registering, Mr. Ayariga described the Electoral Commission’s quest to replace the existing voter register with a new one as useless, alleging that, many minors and foreigners are being registered without proper legal documents to verify their eligibility.

“One of the challenges that I have a particular interest in is the issue of minors being given the opportunity to register using the guarantor system. With this system, anybody can come and register and say I am 18 and above or that I am a Ghanaian and because there are no legal documents backing but just two eligible voters, there is no guarantee of credibility. The mere fact that the EC thinks that the current voter register is not credible is an illusion because the one we are now producing is going to be worse than the one we have.”

Mr Ayariga also argued that the voter register, when compiled will lack credibility for a free and fair election.

“It is an exercise of ignorance, an exercise of failure, an exercise that will not serve its purpose. I came here with a passport, some came with NIA cards but I want to ask whether we really have a perfect document in Ghana that the EC went to parliament to get an approval of C.I 126 to allow passports and NIA cards only? As we speak, I know many Ghanaians who just offered GHS1,000 and got Ghanaian passports. I know many foreigners who have just come and gotten NIA cards, but I applied for the NIA card seven months ago but still don’t have it and had to use my passport. So you can imagine the number of people who might have paid to get the passport or NIA card, so what is the credibility here.”

Mr. Hassan Ayariga also hinted that the party will in due course announce a former presidential candidate as it’s flagbearer for the 2020 polls.

“We should have had our national delegates congress on the 17th of this month but as you are aware we wrote to the electoral commission giving them dates for our national delegates conference where we possibly would have announced the running mate. But they are telling us that because of the voter registration exercise that they are conducting they will not have enough men and time to attend to us so we should wait until after the exercise to have our regional and national delegates congress. On the day we elect a flagbearer, surprises will follow, and I believe it will be a former presidential candidate.”