Home stretch
Education makes people easy to lead but difficult to drive, easy to govern but impossible to enslave. Henry Peter Brougham.
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Each day draws us closer to the 2016 general election. By the time you will be reading this column in two weeks, it would be clear who would be forming the next government from January 7, 2017. That is why it has become necessary for our attention to be focussed on the things that we should do to promote an orderly and a peaceful conduct of the poll.
It has become imperative for all those who have a role to play in the process to be circumspect in every step they take such that the national interest would be upheld. Therefore, my appeal to the key actors, including the political parties and especially, the Electoral Commission (EC), is that they would all act in good faith to reach out to the senses of the people rather than their emotions.
We must all respect the rules of the game and not indulge in any conduct that would appear to undermine the rule of law or due process. That is why the EC must be transparent in every activity it embarks upon between now and the election. Equally, the political parties must not jump at every issue to cry wolf if there is no such cause. More important, the time has come for all of us to talk about peace and justice since there can be no peace without justice, while justice becomes meaningless in an environment of chaos.
Generally, it is held that the average Ghanaian is peaceful by nature, but we should not delude anybody by assuming that if the proper things are not done, we cannot act bestially like any other group of human beings whose freedom or fundamental rights have been trampled upon unjustifiably.
That is why our politicians must be mindful of their language and choice of words. We need to tone down on ethnicity at this time. More important, the EC must not be seen to be engaged in any act that flies in the face of the law. This is important because the EC is responsible for the initiation of legislation towards the conduct of the election. The EC must live above reproach because, for whatever reason, if the EC is accused to have condoned or compromised any provision of the law, whether with or without basis, that cannot portend good for us all.
We would thus expect the EC to be proactive with information in such situations to offer explanation or defuse any hoax to reassure the people that its integrity cannot be exchanged for anything. Thus, in the matter of adding more names from the Ghana Police Service to the list of special voters, once the legal deadline has elapsed, no better reason can be adduced to subvert the law in the name of any convenience.
We need to keep to timelines as a measure of discipline and affirmation of our desire to respect the rules of engagement and obey the law. Only recently the EC was heard loud and clear that it is willing and ready to give meaning to the law when it barred some aspirants from contesting the presidential election because they had breached some provisions of the Constitutional Instrument (CI 94) governing the conduct of the December 7 election. It took the intervention of the Supreme Court to rectify the situation.
It is so soon and fresh in our minds that the EC was no longer going to sleep nor slumber in the enforcement of rule after failing to deal with some of the parties for failing to provide audited accounts or have the required percentage of offices throughout the country. We cannot, therefore, understand or appreciate why the same EC could be approached to allow some more names from police personnel and recruits to be included on the list for special voting when the law requires that such lists must be compiled not less than 42 days to the election for which the list is to be applied.
For institutions such as the National Peace Council and National Commission for Civic Education, there is the need for daily monitoring of events such that any untoward conduct would have to be commented upon suo motto, rather than waiting for some individuals, groups or political parties to appeal to them to act.
Finally, we in the media must exercise circumspection. We must not raise false alarms. There is no need for anybody in the media to be used as surrogates. The next few days must be sober moments for reflections. As the 1992 Constitution enjoins us, we must work conscientiously in our lawfully chosen occupation in the discharge of our journalistic responsibilities to hold all accountable to the people of this country.