CID kowtowing to govt whims to 'intimidate' our anti-register stance - IPRAN

The Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voters Register (IPRAN) has said the invitation by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to the Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah, will not soften its “poignant stance” on the “ill-advised and needless decision to compile a new register of voters.”

The CID invited Mr Mornah for saying: “We’ll beat and kill each other” should confusion arise at any voter ID card registration centre during the Electoral Commission’s forthcoming exercise to compile a new register.

The CID says Mr Mornah made the statement during a press conference by the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN) on 26 May 2020.

He’s expected to honour the invitation on Tuesday, 2 June 2020 at 10 am at the CID headquarters in Accra.

The letter inviting him quoted the IPRAN Convener as having said: “People who are already Ghanaians and are already registered are going to be taken out of the voter register. Don’t you think confusion will come at the registration station? And if confusion comes there, you think the EC staff will be safe? We will beat each other there; we’ll kill each other there if that is what the EC wants to lead this nation to”.

According to IPRAN, in a statement issued and signed by the Leader and Founder of the United Front Party on Thursday, 28 May 2020, it has taken notice of an “official invitation extended to the Convener of the Coalition by the CID to assist in investigations in connection with some alleged inflammatory comments” at its press conference.

The group noted that it is “appalled by the decision of the CID to kowtow to the whims and caprices of some individuals who have been irked by, not just the spirited resistance of Comrade Bernard Mornah, in particular, but by the Coalition as a whole.”

It continued that the Coalition “knows that this is a calculated attempt by the government through the police to intimidate and cow the Coalition into submission on the heated matter of the compilation of anew voters’ register ahead of the 2020 elections” and that “as a law-abiding citizen and a renowned public figure, the CID should be rest assured that Comrade Bernard Mornah would honour the invitation as scheduled in the invitation letter.”

The Coalition continued further that the police should beware “that this is not going to soften the poignant stance of the Coalition on the ill-advised and needless decision to compile a new voters’ register which is going to disenfranchise a vast majority of the people coupled with the fact that it is at a huge cost to the poor taxpayer.”