Kofi Jumah Finaly Buried

But for the timely intervention of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the outgoing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Asokwa in the Ashanti Region would have dented the credibility of the impending biometric registration, last Thursday on an Accra-based radio station.

Mr. Kofi Jumah (Kofi Ghana), who is fond of making wild and unsubstantiated allegations against his opponents, told Happy FM, a private radio station that the National Women Organizer of the ruling NDC, Anita De-Sosoo, was in Togo registering people with a special software secretly given to her by the Electoral Commission (EC) to obtain votes for the NDC, come December 2012.

He also alleged that from Togo, the NDC women leader will sneak to Burkina Faso and Nigeria to engage in the clandestine registration of foreigners to come and shore-up the ruling party’s chances at the December elections.

This wild claims revealed why ex-President Kufuor and his NPP administration always implored the Togolese government, under the late President Gnassingbe Eyadema, to close their side of the boarder, to prevent otherwise legitimate Ghanaian voters including traders from returning to Ghana to exercise their right to vote.

“Something that is supposed to be confidential, that must be with the EC so that they protect it, it has been sighted in a taxi. And someone who has been working with the person who left the software in the taxi has called to tell me”, he alleged.

The MP, who is serving his last term as a legislature, on last Thursday, told Happy FM that the action by Madam De-Sosoo was possible because the NDC is in cahoots with Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and the EC to perpetuate the fraudulent act.

He said that besides registering people from Togo, Burkina Faso and Nigeria with the specialized software from the EC, , he has also sighted in Parliament a copy of the software with his colleague Parliamentarians on the Majority NDC side. Kofi Jumah claimed he discovered the underground maneuvers between the NDC and the EC, after he had seen a copy of the software that was left in a friend’s taxi.

Mr. Jumah insisted he has several information on the hidden agenda of the NDC for the upcoming elections and will unveil them to Ghanaians as the date for the election draws nearer.

“There are so many documents that I had even in December last year, but I am taking my time to disclose them since I know they will definitely come back and deny them”, he said.

Unfortunately for Kofi Ghana, the National Organizer of the NDC was quickly called into the show and he debunked the wild claims, saying the woman (Madam De-Sosoo) in question was in far away United States of America with the President for an official working visit.

Opanyin Yaw Boateng Gyan expressed surprise about the attitude of Mr. Jumah, whom, he said, he respected a lot, considering his level of experience in both politics and private life, having stayed abroad for several years where the truth is always spoken.

“I respected him a lot. I am surprised at the action of Mr. Kofi Jumah, since I thought having stayed abroad and all this while, I thought he will behave in a more responsible manner. As I am talking to you now, my sister Anita is not in any part of Africa, she is in the US.

“Anita traveled to the US on Monday even before President Mills joined them on Tuesday. She is a member of the President’s entourage and so she is not anywhere in the country.

“When she comes back from the US anybody can check from her passport where she went and where she passed before coming back. I don’t remember the last time Anita told me she was going to Togo”, said Mr. Gyan.

Asked why he has not reported the issue to the security since it bothered on electoral fraud, Mr. Jumah said that he did not trust the Police since “they are the government”.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the EC, Madam Sylvia Annor has expressed surprise about the MP’s allegations, noting it is never true that they have given any software to the NDC alone to register foreigners.

She said that the machines for the biometric registration have nothing on it, adding that in the recently held pilot registration, the data will not be serving any serious purpose as they were made to test the possible challenges that were likely to surface when the proper registration commences.

“The EC machines for the biometric registration (kit), there is nothing on it. Even the data for pilot registration, it serves no purpose for now.

“We just wanted to test the waters, know the challenges and problems that are likely to occur so that we can solve any problem”, she said.

She urged Mr. Jumah to make a formal complaint on the matter, if he has credible information as he claims. Whilst a section of the public have been made to understand that participating in the registration could render men impotent, and in some cases give cancer, others doubt if both the registration and verification could do away with double registration and prevent none Ghanaians from registering.

In a related development, last Friday, the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), issued a statement condemning Mr. Jumah’s unbecoming behaviour, when he rained invectives on a journalist, Mr Richard Sky of Citi FM, in the course of carrying out his duties.

The GJA cautioned politicians to be circumspect in the kind of language they use during the political discourse and to be wary of the motives behind the messages they try to send to their followers.