EC should have registered 5,000 students at UG – Agyarko

Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Emmanuel Kyeremateng Agyarko, has asserted that the Electoral Commission (EC) should have registered 5,000 students instead of the 1,565 they recorded at the University of Ghana (UG) in the just ended limited voters’ registration exercise.

Speaking on Atinka FM AM Drive hosted by Kwame Adinkra Tuesday, Kyeremateng Agyarko, said the overall unregistered student population in UG is over 8,000 and so barring any hitches the EC should have registered about 5,000 students and not the 1,565 recorded.

He added that what happened at UG was replicated across most of the tertiary institutions thereby depriving most students in the country of exercising their constitutional rights. He noted that EC in its own wisdom should think about how to get the chunk of students onto the voter list.

Several university students – those from the University of Ghana (UG), Legon, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), University of Cape Coast (UCC) and the University College of Education, Winneba (UCEW) – could not register during the exercise due to the fact that they had only one centre on their campuses which could not cater for the numbers.

In a related development, University students in the country are considering the option of going to court to get the Electoral Commission (EC) to extend the just-ended limited registration exercise.

The exercise, which was intended to register Ghanaians who have turned 18 years and above or those whose names were not on the electoral roll but are eligible to register, ended last Sunday amidst concerns of possible disenfranchisement of potential voters, especially those in tertiary institutions.