Discrimination against people with Northern names during voter registration must stop – Collins Dauda

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Asutifi South, Mr Collins Dauda, has called for an end to discrimination against people bearing Northern names during voter registration exercises.

Speaking at the 40th-anniversary celebration of the enskinment of the head of the Wangara tribe in the Ashanti Region, he said some people bearing northern names always face challenges during voter registration exercises.

Describing it as unfortunate, the former Works and Housing Minister noted that people bearing Akan names do not face such discrimination.

He accused agents of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) of such ethnocentric actions and called for a stop to it.

According to him, such discrimination is due to a lack of knowledge on the part of some of the agents as to who qualifies to be a Ghanaian as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

He, therefore, called on the governing party to sensitise and educate its agents to be informed about who qualifies to be a Ghanaian to end the annual ritual during voter registration exercises.

Mr Dauda also encouraged people who are now 18 years of age to take advantage of the voter registration exercise by the Electoral Commission to get registered to enable them to vote in the 2024 general elections.

For his part, the Head of the Wangara tribe in the Ashanti Region, Alhaji Ahmed Ibrahim Gado Watara, called for an end to police brutalities against Zongo dwellers.

He also appealed to the government to find a lasting solution to the issues confronting commercial freight tricycle operators in order to ensure peace between the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and the tricycle operators.