The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says far from what some may believe, the NDC wholeheartedly supports the use of the Ghana Card as a source of identification for the voters’ registration.
What they do not support, he says, is the use of the Ghana Card as the sole source of identification for the process at a time when about 4 million Ghanaians are yet to acquire their cards.
His comment follows the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to make the Ghana Card the sole source of identification for registering new voters ahead of the 2024 General Elections.
Critics of the EC’s decision, chief amongst them being the NDC, say such a move will disenfranchise the millions of Ghanaians who are still in the process of acquiring their Ghana Cards, and may escalate tension which will threaten the peace and security of the country.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Asiedu Nketia said, “Ordinarily, if every Ghanaian had Ghana Card, that would have been the perfect system. But you have a situation where the rollout of Ghana Card is incomplete leaving out about 4million people without Ghana Card.
“So if you are under obligation to register everybody and you know you’re going in for an identity document that will exclude about 4 million people then from the word go, you’re adopting a policy that deliberately and consciously excludes some people from exercising their right to register and vote.
“So the idea of using Ghana Card as one of the documents is a good thing, but because of the others who have not obtained the Ghana Card, there must be another means of identifying such people so that we can include everybody.”
He noted that the reason for supporting the use of the Ghana Card is that it could help mitigate some of the challenges such registration processes face.
“Indeed, if everybody, every Ghanaian who is 18 years and above has the Ghana Card, we’ll be the first group to support the use of Ghana Card because it will help us to weed away a lot of challenges that affect the registration process,” he said.
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