‘Corrupt’ NDC appointees wouldn’t be making noise if we had jailed them – KT Hammond

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Adansi Asokwa Constituency, Kobina Tahir Hammond has lashed out at the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for mounting a resistance to the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) decision to compile a new voters’ register.

He argues the opposition party knows it “cannot get more than 10 votes in any election in Ghana if a new electoral roll is built”, reason it is going about protesting against the EC’s plan.

But he blames the NDC’s audacity of resistance against “every beautiful initiative in Ghana” on the current government’s failure to put “corrupt” functionaries of the previous administration behind bars, three years after assuming power.

“If they had been jailed for all the money that they stole, they wouldn’t be going about badmouthing the EC; but we in the NPP have a good heart, otherwise, all of these people should have been jailed one by one for them to see their real sizes”, KT Hammond told journalists at Adansi Asokwa on the sidelines of a party meeting.

He said the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah should have been the first person to be jailed, before the others would follow suit; “as for him, I would have personally bundled his hands and legs together, carry him on my shoulders and throw him into prison; those people are thieves and the blood of Satan runs through their veins, except only 20 of them who are my friends”.

The opposition NDC have questioned the morale behind the EC’s decision to compile a new register when it has not adequately given reasons to the Ghanaian people as to why it has become imperative.

Johnson Asiedu Nketia has called the move “senseless” and “meaningless” and has threatened to “pump” some sense into the head of the EC boss if she insists on building a new register.

“Whatever it takes to pump a little sense into the heads of Jean Mensa and her cabal, we will do it”, he said at the first of a series of demonstrations dubbed ‘Tikusayi’, organized by the political parties against the new register in Tamale last week.

The NDC and its friends are also set to march on Kumasi against the EC’s plan on Tuesday in the ‘y3nnpene’ demonstration.

The opposition party and its allies are however not alone in the fight against the new voters' register.

On Thursday, a coalition of eighteen civil society organizations also kicked against the EC’s plan.

“In summary, the EC does not seem to have undertaken a comprehensive assessment to ascertain that an entirely new system is a Hobson’s choice. We, therefore do not support the proposal for a new voters' register by the EC”, the coalition said in a press statement.

But governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and twelve other political parties say they support the EC as long as it does not flout the law in its bid to get a new register for the 2020 polls.

The Electoral Commission insists the current register is fraught with blemishes and that among other weaknesses, it lacks control over the source code to the country’s biometric data.

“It is highly unwise on our part to continue to run a solution we do not have control over and this will be a huge risk to the country and it is akin to us giving our sovereignty to a vendor”, Deputy EC Chair in charge of Operations, Samuel Tettey has said.