I am either daft or things don’t make sense
There are some matters here on earth that cannot be questioned in the open even when they don’t make sense to us. To voice opinion on them would be to expose your ignorance, or foolishness, to put it mildly at best. They require technical knowledge.
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Among these are matters to do with the law. When all my efforts to seek better and proper interpretation from friends who are technically knowledgeable fail, I can only grumble or swear under my breath in the four corners of my room.
For weeks now, I have been swearing under my breath. Either I am daft, or (as the Fante would put it) my head does not come to my aid, meaning I am incapable of making sense out of ordinary legal matters.
In the past few weeks, however, I am arriving at a third rationalisation: the matters I do not understand may themselves not make sense.
For instance, is it true that the Electoral Commission, supported by the Attorney-General’s Department, in the matter relating to the Abu Ramadan case once told the Supreme Court that persons who registered with NHIS cards numbered in the millions and that to refuse to recognise the NHIS card as legal tender in the electoral registration process meant disenfranchising “the majority” of people on the electoral roll?
If (and that is where my illiteracy in law impedes any further analysis) 14 million Ghanaians were on the electoral roll as of 2012, how can a list of 56,000 names be accepted as “the majority”? In my illiteracy I ask: why was the EC not questioned on this at the Supreme Court? On the other hand, was it the case, as is being suggested, that this Statement of fact (if it was uttered in court) was made under circumstances and in a manner that render it inadmissible as evidence against the EC?
If this information in the public domain was (is) not true, why has somebody not found it necessary to say so for the benefit of the majority of the populace who are technically illiterate (in Law)?
Two: Is it true that nowhere on all the registration documents of the EC is there space to indicate with what ID material one registered? If that is so, then how did the EC come by the list of 56,000 names presented to the Supreme Court? Again, in my legal illiteracy, I wonder why the Supreme Court did not demand to know this fact from the EC? I am certain that if it had, the Abu Ramadan case would have ended differently.
Three: Is it true that on the list presented by EC to the Supreme Court as NHIS registrants some of the registration numbers had fewer digits than others? Is this pattern normal? Questions such as this engage the minds of the people and an Electoral Commission that cares how the people perceive it should, in my humble opinion, have taken steps to debunk the rumour — if this revelation, on radio, by Abu Ramadan’s legal team was not true. All it takes is an application to the National Health Insurance Authority to educate the public on this seeming incomprehensibility. Two or three instances of NHIS cards with different digits in the registration numbering would settle the issue in our minds once and for always.
My worry is that we are taking the peace we enjoy for granted.
On another hand, if what Abu Ramadan’s lawyers said on radio was the truth, then there is something in the soup which has not been allowed to boil to the surface!
And now, Four: The names having been deleted, the EC is required to offer the affected Ghanaians the opportunity to re-register. With what form of identification do they register if they have no national ID, a passport or any of the legal documents required for proof of Ghanaian citizenship? According to the law, two Ghanaians who must be relations — parents, guardians, spouses, siblings etc —can guarantee for the prospective registrant. That is all.
My question, however, is: should that be all?
Would I be exposing my legal illiteracy to demand that we take a second look at the law and amend it to require further and better particulars of the blood relationship between the qualified voter and the person he/she seeks to identify? Without this, I beg to state, we are encouraging persons with a natural bent toward fraud to foist their natural criminal propensities on the electoral process.
Merely because judges are not expected to engage the public in arguments over legal matters or even explain themselves to the public, especially in cases on which they sat, does not mean the Judicial Service should not have a system of monitoring illiterate/uninformed rumours and proceed to present the public with the truth or seek to offer explanations.
Peace is not a gift from God. It is a fruit of the seeds we sow. Human beings take measures to ensure its existence. Let us remember that Liberia, until it went to war, was the most peaceful and peace-loving nation in Africa; third, perhaps, in the whole world, after Canada and the Scandinavia. What triggered the war in that country was only a spark, and sparks by themselves do not become fire. Something fuels them into flames.
Answers to questions on the minds and lips of the public, I beg to suggest, contribute to lowering the charged and overheated political temperature in the country. When people do not get answers to questions, they act in ways that look irrational.