Jean Mensa, Asiedu Nketia’s about-turn?

I had all but decided to throw in my lot with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) call for an independent audit of Ghana’s electoral roll! Having consumed a lot of information on the issue, especially the five-point call by the NDC, plus convincing analyses by credible think tanks, I asked, why not?

I had been persuaded by the caution raised by Prof Stephen Kweku Asare, that “an anti-audit EC risks being seen as having something to hide“; and that “it is in the interest of any EC to support an independent audit unless whatever the EC is hiding is worse than what rational people assume it is hiding.”

What decided me even further was a shocking news item in ‘The Daily Guide’ of 2015. It was a communiqué issued on October 28, 2015, at the end of an Institute of Economic Affairs’ (IEA) debate on whether or not to replace the register because it was “bloated” with illegal entries.

The IEA, in that communiqué, was asking the Electoral Commission, chaired (in 2015) by Charlotte Osei, to “show proactiveness and leadership by engaging the services of a competent, credible and external organization to audit the electoral roll”!

Guess who signed the communiqué: self-same Jean Mensa, in her capacity, then, as Executive Director of IEA.

Read the Jean Mensa 2015 communique’s reason for recommending an independent audit. It pointed out that “though Article 46 of the Constitution protects the EC from direction or control, it is nevertheless accountable to the citizens because it is a public organization which draws its funds from the Consolidated Fund.”

While the participants were undecided on whether to purge the register or compile a new one, they were unanimous in their conclusion that “THE COST OF MANAGING A NATIONAL CRISIS RESULTING FROM A FLAWED ELECTORAL PROCESS WOULD BE POTENTIALLY HIGHER THAN THAT OF HAVING AN ACCEPTABLE REGISTER.”

Against such convincing arguments from highly placed authorities, I lined myself up behind the call for a forensic audit.

Somewhere inside my head, however, I could hear the loud clangs of the bell of conscience, urging me on towards further and better investigation.

So I called the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) who gave me Mr Kwesi Jonah, one of its Fellows. Jonah’s position is that while the NDC has a case, an insistence on an “INDEPENDENT” forensic audit is not the way to go.

In thus urging a middle course, he displays excellent institutional memory.

Jonah reminds Ghanaians that the NDC call is not the first time a political party is asking for an independent audit. In 2008, the NDC, in opposition, alleged that two constituencies in the Ashanti Region had a bloated register. In response, the EC Chair, Prof Afari-Djan, set up a committee made up of NPP and NDC members, with an EC Commissioner as Rapporteur.

The committee found that it was true those constituencies had bloated registers but they were caused by computer error. The NDC accepted the judgment and the error was reversed.

Note: It was not an “independent” committee. It was an EC committee.

In 2015, then Running Mate Dr. Bawumia led the NPP, in Opposition, to allege that the voters register contained names of Togolese and other African nationals. In response, the EC, chaired by Charlotte Osei, set up a five-member committee headed by Justice VCRAC Crabbe, with Most Rev Prof Emmanuel Asante, chair of the Peace Council and Alhaji Bin Salih (Ahmadiyya Movement) as members. The Rapporteur was a staff of the EC. Its investigation found no names of Togolese.

Jonah’s recommendation, therefore is as follows: rather than pitting itself intransigently against the NDC’s call, the EC should set up a committee made up of IPAC members to investigate.

As far as yours truly is concerned, this is reasonableness.

That is why I find it extremely distasteful and divisive when the likes of NPP’s National Organizer, Nana Boakye (Nana B) threaten that the NPP has “vowed to resist any attempt to have an external body conduct a forensic audit”.

Needless threat. This is the type of position that caused Mahatma Gandhi to urge that “an eye for an eye make the whole world blind”. What disadvantage does a forensic audit occasion for any party? After all, a credible voter register devoid of errors and acceptable by all is a recipe for peace.

Before my final full stop, I will share with readers a “fact” that I stumbled upon this week. A news item on social media alleges that Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC General Secretary as of 2015, advocated (at that time) that “a forensic audit of the voter register is unnecessary”.

Presenting a position paper on the integrity of Ghana’s 2012 Biometric Voter Register, he advocated the use of “established processes” to verify the register’s accuracy, arguing that “the existing mechanisms (in 2015) are sufficient to guarantee the integrity of the electoral process.”

My call: both Jean Mensa and Asiedu Nketia owe Ghana an explanation for these dramatic about-turns in nine years.