The ongoing voter exhibition exercise at some centers in the Upper East regional capital Bolgatanga has recorded low turnout.
Atiah Patrick, an exhibition officer at the regional house of chiefs polling station as of Wednesday July 28 said only 125 out of 617 registered voters came around to check their details. Also at the Asongtaaba christian mother’s center, 74 individuals turned out to verify their inclusion in the register out of a total of 400 registrants. Other centers including Saint Clement number 1 and 2 and Bolga nursery 1 and 2 both recorded similar low turnout.
One exhibition officer during A1 radio’s tour could not withstand the boring situation and decided to take a short nap on a bench leaving the electoral materials to the mercy of thieves. The officers in an interview attributed the situation to low publicity to create awareness.
“It is like the education hasn’t gotten to everyone so I think they should do something about it, some will even be passing and when you call them they will tell you they don’t even know we are doing something,” an exhibition officer said.
The exhibition officers who were optimistic that the situation might change in the days to come said they have not recorded any major challenge. The upper east region for the past weeks recorded heavy rains. A situation the officers have said has affected the turnout.
Some callers on A1 radio’s morning show ‘Day Break Upper East’ said all hopes for government to bridge the developmental gap between the north and the south have failed and hence the cause of despondency towards electoral activities among citizens of the area.
National Democratic Congress upper east communication team member, John Paul Danka called for decentralized publicity messages by the commission to whip up peoples interest on the exercise
“Let the various regions do their own sounbites for advertisement but if you are still going to sit down there and do a whole say, nobody does that again, it is past,” he said.
Mr. Danka who was speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show disputed an assertion that the low turnout can be attributed to peoples apathy to vote and charged the electoral commission to engage the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the Information Services Department in localizing information to the citizenry.
Osman Kariyama of the New Patriotic Party accused the chairperson of the EC Madam Charlotte Osei of withholding information from the public. According to him, the EC which used to engage other stakeholders in executing its mandatory role has ignored some institutions which play critical role in Ghana’s electoral process.
“The EC is kind of doing things in secrecy, people whose names have been deleted are not even aware.”
According to People’s National Convention’s Johnson Ayine, lack of resources and logistics for the commission and other institutions in carrying out effective education on the exhibition exercises contributed to the low turnout. Mr. Ayine noted that the EC did not pay attention to education of the general public on the electoral process after the Supreme Court ruling on matters of the voters register.
By: Joshua Asaah | A1RADIOONLINE.com | Ghana
