How Was The Other Hunchback Buried?

When it is beyond doubt that there are vultures waiting to devour your carcass, you better not die: your only option is to stay strong and alive.

This situation is no different from what is faced by the four newly appointed heads of the Electoral Commission.

The four; Jean Adukwei Mensa (Executive Director of Institute of Economic Affairs), Dr Eric Bossman (Head of the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana) , Samuel Tettey(Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission)  and Adwoa Asuama Abrefa (a corporate lawyer) have started facing all manner of criticisms and negativity even before they get settled into office.

THE PUBLISHER is of the opinion that they, the newly appointed four, are the best persons to prove their critics either right or wrong.

Fortunately, the work of the Electoral Commission is not one that is done behind closed doors and judged by a special group of persons.

The EC’s work is like the work of a footballer. When you play it well, everyone sees and admires, so also, when you play lazy and flop the game, everyone sees your folly and complains.

Ghanaians and posterity are waiting to pass a verdict on this new team and we, at THE PUBLISHER can only encourage them to live above reproach and prove their critics wrong.

No one benefits from a failed and flopped EC. It is not in the interest of any political party, or any group of Ghanaians to have an Electoral Commissions that lacks credibility and does not know its left from its right.

Ghanaians already know the challenges faced by the EC and why the institution has suffered a dwindling credibility over the last years.

Issues of a bloated voters’ register where sometimes the number of persons on the register does not tally with the census figures of the area, issues of a voters’ register that has clear minors in there, issues of EC officials behaving as though they were tin gods waving political party flags and so on and so forth.

We remember with sorrow, how embarrassing it was for Ghana during the Nana Addo-Bawumia-Obetsebi Lamptey led electoral petition and when during cross examination of the then EC Chair, Dr. Afari Djan, the whole world heard him admitting that figures that were tabulated as the official electoral results had several trans positional errors and other forms of errors!!!!

How on earth can a set of figures have errors yet we expect to get a credible figure when they are tabulated and summed up?

The new EC Chair, Auntie Adukwei and her deputies have had the benefit of witnessing how their predecessors were dealt with when Ghanaians believed something was terribly amiss with their style of leadership.

We only hope and pray that this new team would learn from the adage that when a hunchback is being buried, other hunchbacks observe and take a cue.