I wasn’t impressed with the deployment of soldiers at registration centres – Bishop Agyinasare

The Founder of the Perez Chapel International, Bishop Charles Agyinasare, has fearlessly condemned President Akufo-Addo’s decision to deploy soldiers at the just ended controversial voters registration.

According to him, the presence of military men at registration centres does not guarantee the peace citizens may wish for in the run towards the December 7 polls.

“I was not too impressed when I saw some video clips during the registration when the soldiers were asking people…. for soldiers, their presence alone keeps the fear of man in you so going into the elections you will want to see the soldiers and police being professional,” Bishop Agyinasare told JOY News in an interview monitored by MyNewsGH.com.

This year’s voter registration exercise was met with a lot of criticisms from some Ghanaians, Civil Societies Organisation and mostly the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

According to the government, the military personnel who were mostly seen in the Volta Region were sent to prevent people from unlawfully entering the country when borders were closed to human traffic by road.

However, reports available to the media at the time suggested the military men were rather at registration centres preventing people they believed were not Ghanaians from getting their names onto the register and not borders as claimed by the government.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo debunked the claim saying it was a measure to stop the importation of the novel Coronavirus into the country and not to intimidate citizens in the affected regions.

The most affected region by the president’s decision was the Volta Region which happens to be the stronghold of the opposition NDC.



But speaking on Joy News, Bishop Agyinasare warned the Electoral Commission saying “Going into the elections, I would say that we want peaceful elections. We want to make sure that the EC would be as neutral as they can be, we want our military and police to be professional and they shouldn’t harass people.”

He further noted comparing Ghana’s democratic governance with other African countries, Ghana has done well but still far behind the democracy in the Europe and America saying from 2015 England has had three general elections but nobody was stabbed, and nobody died.

“We had a registration exercise and we experienced stabbing, killing, and fighting. So for me, I think we’ve come a long way but there is a lot more to do,” Bishop Agyinasare chided.