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Some members of the public yesterday besieged the headquarters of the National Disaster Management Organization at Kawukudi to protest what they suspected to be a clandestine move by some officials of the Electoral Commission and the National Democratic Congress to manipulate some of the EC’s Form 1As.

The EC’s Form 1A is filled at the point of registration to show details such as the kind of identification a voter uses as the basis of his qualification to register. An estimated over 4,000 people who have their names on Ghana’s current voters’ register used the National Health Insurance Cards as basis of qualification in the previous registration.

The Supreme Court has since ruled it was unconstitutional to use the NHIS cards to register to vote in the country, and subsequently ordered the EC to delete the names of those who registered with the cards from the register. The EC is yet to implement the order from the apex court of the land.

According to one of the protestors, who gave his name as Nii Quaye, they had information that boxes of the EC’s Form 1A had been brought to the NADMO office, and that there were people there working on the forms.
They therefore decided to storm the office to register their displeasure at the development.

“We met the security and demanded to see the officials. They asked what we wanted and we told them what we had heard. They told us some boxes were brought in last Friday but they did not know what the boxes contained. They did not allow us to go inside so there was some confusion and they called the Police. But before the Police came, most of the people were gone. We were still hiding and observing things,” Nii Quaye told the narrated to the Daily Statesman.

Meanwhile, the Christian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council have asked the Electoral Commission to implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on the voters’ register.

The two bodies contended that with the limited time ahead of the 2016 general election, the election management body would have to speed up the process of ensuring the electoral roll is cleaned as directed by the highest court of the land.

In an emphatic stance in a joint communiqué issued after a meeting in Accra, the Christian organizations asked the EC to rid the register of persons who registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme Cards.

The Supreme Court in an unambiguous ruling on May 5, 2016, directed the EC to take immediate steps to delete from the voters’ register, names of unqualified persons including those who used NHIIS cards as a form of identification as Ghanaians.

The Apex Court also asked the Commission to give such people the opportunity to register again with lawful form of identification.

This follows a previous ruling by the same court in a case brought by a former National Youth Organiser of the People’s National Convention, Abu Ramadan, in which the court ruled that use of NHIS card was an unlawful proof of citizenship.

According to the General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr Opuni Frimpong, since the EC has not given Ghanaians any impression to believe that it does not understand the Supreme Court’s ruling, it has to implement the decision.

He said the current misunderstanding over the interpretation of the SC’s ruling is attributable to the public pronouncement of some lawyers which he described as unfortunate.

“If the EC understands what the Supreme Court has asked it to do, then as the ruling said immediately, it has to do so….We want to see that happening. We are close to the election,” Dr. Opuni-Frimpong stated.