Mahama blasts Akufo-Addo over military involvement in voter registration exercise

The involvement of the military in the just ended voter registration exercise across the country has been described by former President John Dramani Mahama as an unreasonable act for the Commander-In-Chief to subject the military personnel to such an embarrassing situation.

The NDC Flagbearer for the 2020 general election, John Dramani Mahama again described the military deployment in the voter registration exercise as a sad one as their services are not needed in such an activity.

To him, it is wrong for the Commander-In-Chief to involve the military as the first point of security when the police and other security agencies are rather supposed to handle the voter registration exercise.

“The sad one is the use of the military; the military is our last line of defence, they are called for support to protect the territorial borders of the country . . . you don’t involve the military as the first point of security; where is your police? Where are all your other security agencies?”, he asked rhetorically.

“And yet we saw videos of the military being put in situations that were very embarrassing. I don’t know, which reasonable Commander-in-chief will put his military in a situation to be hooted at and all that? It doesn’t work like that,” he scolded.

Former President John Mahama reminded President Akufo-Addo on the operations of the military saying that “often the military are stationed, they are on standby and when law and order have broken down and they get to call the commander for help, they even have to clear from their higher authority before they move into action and yet during this registration exercise and we saw military deployed everywhere at the registration centres; actually physically at registration centres to determine who should register and who should not”.

He, however, sounded clear that it is not the job of the military to determine who should or should not register in the country; adding that it is a worrying trend under the Akufo-Addo government which needs a voice of the voiceless and of moral society like him to address it.

“These are worrying developments and we all need to be concerned about them and I think that as the voice of the voiceless and the voice of moral society, it is necessary for me to interact and give you some of the perspectives that we have about what is happening,” he stated.