Presided over by Mrs Justice Sophia Adinyira, the Supreme Court extended the nomination date to tomorrow, November 8, to enable all disqualified candidates to correct the mistakes on their forms and thus make themselves eligible to contest the Presidential elections.
The Supreme Court order is victory for common sense. Unfortunately, it is also a slap in the face of the recalcitrant chairperson of the Electoral Commission, who appears to be on a suicide mission and scheming to go down with this lovely republic and its citizens.
Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, it is the wish of The Chronicle that Mrs. Osei and her commission would obey the order and do the right thing. With barely one month to the polls, this is not the time to litigate over mundane issues.
We would like to believe that those unseen faces pulling the strings and making the chairperson and her Commission to dance to their tunes would leave the Commission alone to do an honest job.
The 2016 election is key to the survival of this nation-state. After eight years of what a Supreme Court judge labeled as “create, loot and share,” the people of Ghana must be allowed their freewill to decide on who among the 17 candidates contesting the polls, has the right programme and attitude to pull this nation out of the mess.
When Attorney-General Marietta Brew-Oppong wrote to the Supreme Court to withdraw the state from chasing the GHc51.2 million bungling state officials paid to Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome for no job done, it told the story of an administration neck deep in corruption. Obviously, the die is cast for Mr. John Dramani Mahama and his moribund administration.
Unfortunately for most Ghanaians, the head of state is fighting tooth and nail to remain at Government House.
As Mrs. Gifa Attivor, the former Minister of Transport, who resigned in disgrace in the debacle over the Smartty deal, President Mahama and his appointees are apparently fighting to avoid being thrown into jail, after recklessly dissipating public funds.
It is quite obvious from the way the President is throwing away public funds in his quest to remain in power, that the Head of State is defending something more, than the right to remain in power.
Be it as it may, the people of Ghana are only clamouring for free and fair elections. It looks as though the Electoral Commission is on a mission other than the fairness of the vote. Only the appointing authority knows what went into bringing Mrs. Charlotte Osei to head the Commission.
This is a woman born in Nigeria to a Nigerian mother. Our Constitution is very clear on the nationality clause. Yet, President Mahama and his advisers at the Council of State, unfortunately populated at the top, mainly by those who pursued the agenda of throwing out the Constitutional Government of President Hilla Limann, went ahead and brought this woman, who in all honesty, is emotionally attached to her country of birth.
Since occupying the chair at the Commission, Mrs, Osei has been interested more in the affairs at the periphery than the serious business of preparing the Commission for the vote. All the time and resources were wasted throwing out the old logo featuring this nation’s Coat-of-Arms in favour of a school boy’s drawing with crayon.
All this time, the real issue at stake was the vexed question of the over-bloated register. As it is, this nation is going to the polls with a register than cannot truly represent the population of this country. As it is, over 15 million people are hooked on the register of a country whose population is well short on 30 million.
In our part of the world, it is universally acknowledged that there are more children than adults. If this universal truth is applicable to Ghana, then surely, 15 million people cannot be registered to vote.
Mrs. Osei would not want to know about this serious anomaly and still go about pontificating on working to deliver a clean vote. The Chronicle does not trust this woman to deliver an honest vote. The signs are all over the place.
We take consolation in the fact that in this world, man proposes and God disposes. The Supreme Court verdict vindicates some of us who believe that there must be some mischief up the sleeves of this Nigerian-born Chairperson of the Electoral Commission. With this slap in the face, has Mrs. Charlotte Osei any credibility left to conduct the polls? We doubt very much. ENYIMGUASE AWAABA!
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