Revealed: Electoral Commission registered Togolese Nationals in Lome, Togo

Between Sunday, 17th February, 2013 and Saturday, 23rd February, 2013, I had the opportunity to participate in a Global Entrepreneurship Training Programme organized by the Handong Global University and the Methodist University College, Ghana. The venue was the Faculty of Agriculture of the Wench Campus of Methodist University, Ghana.

Participants were selected from Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone. Resource persons came from the Republic of South Korea, United States and Ghana. Volunteers were mostly from South Korea.

The Training gave me an insight into what has made South Korea an Economic Power in the World. The people are Christians to the core for everything they do hinges on that fact. Breakfast was at 7.30am and Lectures started at 8.30am and ended at 10pm with periods for 2 Tea breaks, Lunch and Supper. Then we retired to our Hotel Rooms and Hostels which were about twenty five minutes from the venue of the Training. But after lectures every evening, the Korean Volunteers and the Resource Persons would stay behind and pray for about thirty minutes before retiring to their Hotel Rooms in the evenings. The following morning, they would be the first to leave the hotel to pray for about thirty minutes before breakfast.

And God has not deserted the country. He has been faithful to the citizens and the country. Yes, I will personally vouch for the South Koreans in the sense that when it comes to trusting and worshipping God, the people are First, Second to none. And I believe it is their trust in the Lord that things have gone on well for the country. Take it or leave it, but that is one of the important lessons that I learnt at Wenchi.

Secondly, I marveled at the state of preparedness and time consciousness of the South Koreans. They were always on time and if a lecture was to last two hours, the facilitators and resource persons apportioned the time very well that by the end of the period, one would gladly say that the period spent had not been in vain. It was a worthwhile experience and if I have the opportunity to attend it again, I wouldn’t let it past me. The youngsters from that country were always “running”. It appears as if they were walking on springs and there was gait in their steps. This might be attributable to perhaps their two year military training each youth undergoes in the country.

I think we can borrow a leaf from the Koreans and other countries where military training is a must for the youth. Nigeria does not have compulsory Military Service but some aspects of military training are embedded in the National Service Programme. Before the Service Personnel passes our, he/she undergoes a bit of military drilling. I feel we could incorporate some aspect of both the South Korean and the Nigerian experience into our National Service Programme. My interaction with Komi Adela : My inquisitive mind was at work during our break hours. I got into conversations with participants from different countries. I wanted to know what goes on in those countries and what make things tick in such countries. In the process I became friends with Komi. He is a nice gentleman, vivacious and a jolly good fellow by all accounts. He is easy going and has a talent for music. He led the Togolese during the Community Service at Wench Methodist Church on Wednesday morning. It was a delight to hear him sing in his melodious baritone voice. He also led the Togolese Group during the Cultural Night Activities. You cannot hate but love him.

Incidentally, we both found ourselves in the same Group (Group Ten) during the Project Work. That gave us more time to hold fruitful discussions together especially during our break time. In one of such conversations, our friend arrogantly and boastfully told us he had voted in the December 8, 2012 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections. We asked him why he did that and he told us many people were doing that and so he found nothing wrong with that. The bombshell: He said they were registered by the EC in Lome, Togo but he voted at Aflao. The onerous task lies with the Electoral Commission to deny or confirm this allegation by Komi Adela, a Togolese. He said his own case was different from majority of Togolese who registered and voted in the sense that the latter were influenced by financial consideration to register and vote but he did not collect any money and that makes him a virtuous person. We asked which party he had voted for that particular party and his answer was revealing. The perpetrators of such heinous coup against mother Ghana had a replica of a huge elephant, the umbrella and symbols of other political parties. They told him and others that a mere look of the Elephants shows it is very destructive in nature and so was its leader and Presidential Candidate. But the umbrella was very useful at all time, both during rainfall and sunshine. Almost everybody fell for that bait and voted for the NDC which had the umbrella as its symbol.

By that time, the conversation had generated much interest. He was asked if he is a Christian and he answered in the affirmative. Others took turns to ask him if it was not against Christian Principles to take part in an election which he knew was only opened to Ghanaians. He said he was sorry for his action and promised not to take part in any future elections in Ghana. Some participants were not enthused by his response and cleverly took pictures of him with the aim of reporting him to the law enforcement agencies.

But it will be difficult to obtain a conviction. Like Jezebel who concocted malicious evidence against Naboth, our own Jezebel, Afari Djan will ask “where is the evidence”? Our Komi Adela of a friend, if put in the witness box will be coached by evil minded Ghanaians to deny having made any such remarks. Where would we be then? We would be heading nowhere. Again, how do you get him arrested by our law enforcement agencies since he is not a Ghanaian citizen? The case of Chris Brown is still fresh on our minds. When the accused person committed the crime in the presence of the security personnel, they looked the other way and allowed the culprit to sneak through their dragnet. How then do we expect them to act when the offender left the country immediately after the training programme on Saturday, 23rd February, 2013? We would need an international warrant to arrest him and bring him back to Ghana for prosecution. But who would bell the cat? Not this Mahama’s government who is the beneficiary of Komi Adela’s constitutional coup against the Republic of Ghana! The Government and the Security Personnel are least enthused about bringing electoral offenders to justice. So we shall continue to have the Komi Adelas in our electoral system.

Is this the legacy we are going to leave for our children both living and those yet unborn? Do we allow foreigners to come and elect our Presidents and Members of Parliament for us? Then we might as well ask foreigners to come and organize our elections for us.

The elections were rigged the moment the EC entered into an unholy alliance with the Ministry of Education to deny teachers the right to be used as Registration Officers. That was the beginning of the confusion that has put us into the position we now find ourselves. Some Polling Station Officials deliberately dropped the verification machines to make them malfunctional. This was what one EC official told us at our polling station. She said they were told during training that if the machine falls down it will freeze and will be very difficult to make it function again. Again they were told not to allow the batteries of the verification machines to run down totally before changing them. They knew all these. Yet they allowed the machines to go bad.

The time has come for the youth who are the future leaders of the country to put their aces together and shout, “Enough is enough”. These manipulations have got to come to an end. It is time Ghanaians of every tribe, religion and political persuasions put aside their differences and identify their canker worms have dogged all attempts aimed at ameliorating them .Now is the time, for tomorrow might be too late. The Komi Adelas should disappear from our electoral system.

Daniel Danquah Damptey (Damptey_daniel@yahoo.com)

(danieldanquah_damptey@yahoo.com) (0243715297).