Registration Exercise: Arrest & Jail Guarantors Who Vouch For Non-Ghanaians - Atik To Security Forces

Convener of civil society organisation, the Mass Action Committee (MAC), Atik Mohammed has called on the Ghana Police Service to arrest any person caught guaranteeing for someone who is not a Ghanaian in the voters' registration exercise.

The EC commenced the registration exercise on Tuesday, June 30, 2020.

According to the EC, the source documents for registering the names of eligible Ghanaians are the Ghana card or passport and in the case of people who don't have any of these identification documents, they are entitled to use guarantors.

However, anyone who is not a citizen of Ghana is not allowed to register his or her name and if caught would face the rigors of the laws.

This notwithstanding, reports indicate that some guarantors have turned their privilege into a lucrative business and vouching for people who are not Ghanaians to register their names at some registration centers across the country.

Wondering why some people have decided to make the EC's work difficult, Atik Mohammed described them "unpatriotic".

"In Ghana, the sense of patriotism is not there because if you're a true patriot, you won't allow someone who isn't a Ghanaian to register nor help a person who shouldn't register to register. But because people don't feel patriotic to the corporation called Ghana, they want to find any means to earn money from this...When we do all these things and at the end of day, in the future, we say there is a problem with the register; who caused it? Is it not us who caused it? So we're trying as a country to rid our register of irregularities but some people have made it their job, their mission, to make sure there are irregularities. It is simply because we lack patriotism as a country,'' he said.

Making his submissions on ''Kokrokoo'' on Peace FM, Atik Mohammed bemoaned the behaviour of such guarantors stressing ''these are people who must be jailed. When we jail them, that enterprise will come to an end''.

He urged the security service to perform their duties without fear or favour by rounding up the perpetrators to serve as a deterrent to others.

''They have to rise above the fear of political vindictiveness or, however you'll describe it, whether persecution. They need to let everybody know they're independent. They have the power to do whatever it is that they're supposed to do'', he said.