Ghanaians should shun NDC over Ghana Card - Nana Boakye

Mr Dennis Amfo-Sefah, Tema West Constituency Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has dismissed the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s attention seeking behaviour in government’s moves to provide identity cards for all Ghanaians.

“If you were in Parliament, was presented with the bill, you scrutinised the bill, praised it and approved its passage, why are you now saying that the law is not good and so the Supreme Court should adjust it. Why? Were they sleeping in Parliament?

Mr Amfo-Sefah, popularly known as Nana Boakye, who was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said the NDC’s decision to go to court over the exclusion of the Voter’s ID card from the list of accepted means of registration onto the Ghana Card was borne out of the party’s nature to oppose everything government did.

The Tema West Constituency Chairman lamented that in spite of the clear fact that the NDC was only seeking to throw spanners into moves by the government to do a very good thing for Ghanaians, the same Ghanaians are giving the NDC opportunity to waste ears.

“How the radio stations and TV stations keep giving the opposition their platforms to repeat the same tired argument over and over again is just lamentable. Ghanaians should shun these Pharisees for our own good,” Nana Boakye said.

The NDC has gone to court over the exclusion of the Voters’ ID card as a mode of existing identification through which Ghanaians can be registered in the new national identification process that would put all the data of each citizen on a smart card.

The opposition party’s argument is that, the three modes of identification prescribed by the law – birth certificate, passport or vouch by two relatives of a prospective registrant, are not reliable because most Ghanaians do not have birth certificates and passports.

Therefore the opposition party wants the Voters ID card, which it says is widely possessed by Ghanaians, included in the list of acceptable modes of registration.

Interestingly however, the same opposition was in Parliament when the bill for the Ghana Card was introduced and gaily approved it. The Minority’s Inusah Fuseini, MP for Tamale Central, who had seconded the motion to pass the bill had praised the decision to provide the Ghana Card saying that it was an indictment on Ghana that in the 21st Century Ghanaians had not officially been identified even though the census started in biblical times.

It was after this approval on the floor of Parliament that the same NDC Minority started crying foul over the Ghana Card law and have gone to court over it.

“The NDC went to court simply because they later realised that the provision of the Ghana Card is a fulfilment of a campaign promise by President Akufo-Addo and just feel that they have to at least resist it. But whether they like it or not, Ghanaians will get the card; we promised them and we will deliver.

“I will, however, urge the Ghanaian people to leave them to their own monkey tricks. They have taken the case to court, let them go and sort it out there. Let’s stop giving them our ears to waste,” Nana Boakye said.

He enumerated the advantages of knowing the exact identity of the citizens of the country, saying among other things that population statistics was chiefly used for planning and development. “Even population growth can only be managed when you know the number of your citizens.”