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NOGAID Ghana, a forefront development organisation in the Northern Region, has urged the citizenry to applaud the Electoral Commission (EC) for successfully creating a new voters register.

NOGAID Ghana said “Undoubtedly, Madam Jean Mensa and her colleagues demonstrated real leadership by sticking to their belief that a new voters’ register is conterminous with delivering free, fair and transparent elections in December.”

It said “The Commission’s ability to manage some provocations from social media users and the tact used to carry along almost all stakeholders, coupled with its discreet crisis communication management processes is laudable.”

This was in a statement issued by NOGAID Ghana signed by Mr Mustapha Sanah, it’s Executive Chairman, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Tamale.

The statement said “Jean Mensa’s strong leadership and commitment to Ghana’s democracy has produced for our nation a new register, which we are all proud of. Despite the challenges, tur- out was impressive and majority of qualified voters captured to the satisfaction of all parties. This undoubtedly increased the voters roll from 15,712,505 in the 2016 album to 16,963,306 in 2020, an increase of about 7.4 per cent.”

It said “the Electoral Commission did not have the comfort of sufficient time for mass education and other forms of preparations” adding “The Commission, by the competence demonstrated despite the challenges, proved capable of winning the trust and confidence of all Ghanaians to deliver free, fair and transparent elections in December.”

It said “We monitored with keen interest the national conversation surrounding the creation of a new voters’ register and the strong proponents as well as opponents of the idea.
This generated enormous public rancour and legal tussles that nearly marred the progress of our national peace and unity.”
It added that “At some stage, our fraternity within the CSO community nearly broke down with the various entrenched positions adopted by actors.

It said “The innovative “Let the Citizen Know” concept introduced by the Commission during the registration period to periodically provide timely update to Ghanaians on daily and weekly basis, by breaking down and itemising all key and relevant demographic information and figures for the registration process was a novelty.”

The statement said “In the course of the six-week registration exercise, NOGAID Ghana visited about 122 registration centres across the five Regions of the North, and interacted with more than 1,350 party agents, electoral officers, security personnel and registrants. The verdict of all these stakeholders was that the exercise was a big success and a plus to our democracy.”

It, therefore, called on all stakeholders “To work together to expunge the names of unqualified people, who infiltrated the register, including; minors and foreigners. The EC should declare a two-week amnesty for the voluntary cleansing of minors and foreigners from the register. This will encourage the minors to come forward to delete their names from the voters roll.”