Bolga residents squat to take voter’s ID photographs

Some Bolgatanga residents had to go through the sordid experience of squatting to take pictures for their Voter’s ID card in the ongoing Limited Voters Registration nationwide.

Assembly members in the Upper East region as well as unit committee members have been accused of not giving the Electoral Commission (EC) the needed support to ensure a successful registration of new voters.

For about one hour after the exercise had commenced, EC officials were stranded at some centres designated for the exercise in Bolgatanga, the regional capital, as there was no furniture for them to work. One of such centres is the Abilba Number-one JHS at Sawaba, a suburb of the municipality.

Whilst the EC team had to stand for a long while until a set of furniture was borrowed from nearby homes, those who came to register had to squat to have their photographs taken. The centre falls within the Tindonsheo Lagos Town Electoral Area.

Angry agents of political parties present as of the time Starr News visited the centre descended heavily on the assembly member of the area.

“In other areas, the assembly members have come on board to support the activities of the Limited [Voters] Registration process. But the assembly member for this area has failed to arrange the logistics for the exercise. The assembly member happened to travel. But he could have organised his people to undertake the activities on his behalf.

"The Assemblyman for Atulbabisi was able to go to the centre in his area this morning, liaised properly with the headmistress of the school to help the EC with furniture. We could have seen an appreciable turnout if assembly members had also helped to mobilise their communities to take part in the exercise,” Godwin Sofo Atindanbono, an agent of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), grumbled.

Robertson Atua, an agent of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the centre, registered a similar disappointment, saying: "What my counterpart (the NPP agent) just said is as true as twelve inches are equal to one foot. Besides, this centre is not well located. It's not central enough. People who are far away from this centre would prefer to go to another area like Soe (a community about five hundred metres away from Sawaba) or just lose interest in the exercise because of the distance."

Registrants sitting on their heels for photographs ended after the EC officials found an old bench from a source close to the centre.

The bench was swiftly replaced with plastic chairs after Starr News had brought the anomaly to the attention of the Upper East Regional Director of the EC, James Arthur Yeboah.

Only nine people had been registered as of Starr News' second visit to the same centre around 4:00pm on Wednesday. Plaza, another centre in the municipality, had registered only two people as at 3:00pm. Turnout has remained awfully low across the region.

The Deputy Upper East Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Joseph Kwaku Yeboah, told journalists in Bolgatanga a lot of public education programmes on the exercise had been carried out in the region. The situation, according to him, is a reflection of the "usual last-minute attitude" of some people towards time-bound programmes.

EC did not involve us ?Assembly members

Some assembly members have attributed the irregularities seen on the first day of the exercise to what they describe as "shocking exclusion of assembly men" from the EC's arrangements.

"The Electoral Commission did not inform me [about] anything. At least, they should have taken our numbers and inform us that tomorrow or tomorrow next there would a registration. That's the problem. They should have involved us to go round and inform our people that there is a registration" Osman Musah, the beleaguered assemblyman for Tindonsheo Lagos Town, fought back.

The assemblyman for Gambibgo, Abubakari Ayinbila Atera, echoed the same concern but said he did not have to wait on the EC to mobilise his community for the exercise.

"The EC did not involve me in their plans. But I went ahead to mobilise my community members myself and organised furniture for those coming from the Electoral Commission to perform their duty well. Although, the EC has engaged us, assembly members, to assist in removing names of deceased persons and ghost names from the voters' register when it is time for exhibition after this Limited Voters Registration process.

"But I must add that the machines being used for the ongoing exercise are too slow. One person takes about thirty minutes to register. If the same machines are what we are going to use in the November elections, they would cause chaos," Mr. Abubakari stated.

The EC's Regional Director responded in a telephone interview, describing the attack on assembly members over the exercise as unnecessary.

"First of all, I don't know why anybody would go and attack their assemblymen. And secondly, we do not have any programme like Electoral Commission meeting with assemblymen to tell them what to do. But we go to the community and tell them we are going to do registration and here is the registration centre. And we ask the assemblymen to help us beat the gong-gong and organise chairs and things like that. We are in a situation where some areas the assemblymen helped, in some areas the assemblymen didn't help," Mr. Yeboah responded.

Residents blame low turnout on timing

Residents, including agents of political parties, have blamed the low turnout confronting the exercise on what they describe as unsuitable timing.

According to them, turnout is poor largely because a majority of those who have just turned 18 years and are part of the target for the exercise are in boarding schools.

"Right now, most of the students who should be registering their names on the voters' roll have just returned to school from the Easter break. If we had organised a limited registration exercise of this nature during a vacation period, the turnout would be greater than this," Margaret Abilla, a civil servant, said.