The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has stoked the controversy about the registered voters in Togo with his announcement that he will visit NDC registered members in Togo to encourage them to come and cast their vote on December 7.
He said he would be going to Togo next month to meet Ghanaians (NDC supporters), registered in Volta Region and assure them that the 1992 Constitution that guarantees Ghanaians from the Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions who live abroad to come and register and vote, covers those in Togo.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, who was addressing a large crowd of members of the Volta Caucus at Fumso in the Adansi Asokwa Constituency in the Ashanti Region, said he would urge them to come in their numbers to cast their votes.
The Volta Caucus, which has Madam Dzifa Attivor, the former Minister of Transport, as its leader, is a group of people from the Volta Region who support the NDC but reside outside the Volta Region. Their aim is to engage in house-to-house campaign to garner votes for President John Dramani Mahama and the various parliamentary aspirants.
Adansi Asokwa and the New Edubiase Constituency are both farming communities with large numbers of settlers from the Volta and the three northern regions.
The NDC and Mr Kofi Yakah, the NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for New Edubiase, have been winning the seat and the presidential elections over the years in the constituency and it is one of the safest seats of the party in the Ashanti region.
Constitution
Mr Asiedu Nketia said the 1992 Constitution that guaranteed people from the Ashanti, Nzema and Brong to come from abroad and register and cast their votes for their preferred candidates, is the same for those Ghanaians living in Togo.
He said NDC was the only party that guaranteed the rights of minority ethnic, religious and gender groups, a move that had endeared the party to such groups who have always cast their votes for the party.
He said unlike the NDC, the NPP was against Ghanaians who lived in neighbouring countries, and that was the reason they alleged that some of the votes in Upper West and Upper East regions were from Burkina Faso, those from Brong Ahafo and Western were from Cote d’Ivoire, while those from the Volta Region were not Ghanaians but from Togo.
“Let My Vote Count” and the NPP in recent past have argued that some of the people who registered in the towns and villages bordering Cote d’Ivoire and Togo were not Ghanaians and urged the EC to expunge their names from the voters register.
The NPP brought out some of the names which they said came from Togo but the EC insisted that it could not vouch for the integrity of those documents.
Settlers
He said it was based on such erroneous impression that immediately after the 2012 election, they wanted the Supreme Court to throw away votes from those neighbouring countries, meaning, “They believe that their votes were more valuable than those from minority groups.
“When we meet you like this, it is not about tribalism. It is about fighting for our rights and fighting for what is due us, period. Our laws state that a Ghanaian can go to any part of the country. All I need to do is to have an agreement with the land owners, and this does not include how the settler would vote”, he stated.
Source: graphic.com.gh
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So Bawumia was right after all
Why only Togo??? what about Cote D'voire, and Burkina Faso?? I smell a rat. Now am beginning to believe we have a lot of Togolese in our register..
Am sick of this NDC=Volta equation perpetrated by n1ncompuups like Asiedu Nkatsia et alllll
I can agree with you Esi that Mr Asiedu-Nketiah has not violated any law. But you would agree with any well-meaning Ghanaian that the electoral register is not clean 100%. What proponents of clean or as it were change the electoral register fear is that the odds may turn against them. It is humanly normal to have such fears. However, anybody who exhibits fears or opposition to Mr Nketiah's call to those without to come home to vote boils down to the fact that the those who may come from the BURKINA, TOGO or LA COTE D'VOIRE may not be genuinely Ghanaians as the Laws of the land posits. Believe you me, I have met 3 foreigners, a Nigerian, a Burkinabe and a Liberian; all voter's ID card holders. None of them have naturalized to be Ghanaian though yet they can vote. Assuming all these persons' name in the register. Would you not complain if the odds turn against you? Fact is because Volta Region and the 3 regions in the North tend to be strong hold of the NDC, the opposition would always have cause to be concerned should there be infiltration of foreigners in larger proportions. Calculus, I believe if a German or a British or Chinese come down to register let alone vote, everybody will be able to recognize them as foreigners. But how about our Togolese, Burkinabe or Ivorian brothers and sisters? I don't believe your submission is deep enough. But hey its your opinion and we can learn a thing or two from each other. Except name-calling and casting of aspersions. We should be decorous in speech and deed. The most important thing we can wish for is PEACE before, during and after elections. Life must go on after elections. My humble submission anyways. stay bless y'all and God bless our homeland Ghana.
Interesting times. Why does Asiedu Nketia think that once one is from the Volta region then the person is NDC? After Dzifa Ativor and others went enriching themselves, you form a Volta Caucus and expect all of us to sheepishly follow? I cant't think far.
Why does the NDC take those of us from the Volta Region for granted? Once our cousins in Togo have their names in the electoral register, their votes are automatically for the NDC!!!!! They have now created Volta Caucus for our relatives in other parts of Ghana to whip up ethnic sentiments, hoping that all such Voltarians would naturally vote for them. This is dangerous for Ghana and members of the so-called caucuses. This is different from meeting Ghanaians in Germany, UK, US, Canada, etc.
The NPP led by Nana Addo Trump goes to the UK, US, Germany and even China to solicit for fund and campaign there. They encourage their members to come and vote. NDC says they are going to Africa countries to do same and the NPP cum their media houses are going "med"? Common sense is indeed not common
Semi-illiterate Ghanaians, before you skin General Mosquito, please quote what provision of the 1992 constitution he has violated or intending to violate.
Go bring them, we would make sure after 7 december, we would get the electoral register of TOGO and match them with Ghana's, we prosecute all of them and send their A,.,, S,..,.,S,.,..E....,.,..S INTO PRISON FOR A LONG TIME. Warning to all TOGOLESE
Go bring them, we would make sure after 7 december, we would get the electoral register of TOGO and match them with Ghana's, we prosecute all of them and send their ***barred word***# INTO PRISON FOR A LONG TIME