Nitiwul challenges Mahama to bring evidence of voter suppression

 
The Minister for Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, has rejected claims of voter suppression by the military. In a press briefing, Dominic Nitiwul, denied allegations made by the former president John Mahama of government using the military to prevent eligible Ghanaians from registering in the ongoing voter’s registration exercise.
According to him, government has not conceived any plan of denying eligible Ghanaians their constitutional right of registering to vote. He therefore challenged former president Mahama to back his allegations of voter suppression with evidence as his ministry is willing and ready to act on it.
Former President Mahama in a Facebook post on Sunday accused the Akufo-Addo led government of using the military and party thugs to stop people from exercising their right to register and vote in the upcoming December polls. He further berated the government of using executive powers to foment ethnic discrimination.
Mr. Nitiwul however, queried if the number of registrants in the Northern and Volta Regions were below the national average for the former president to make a conclusion of voter suppression.
Reacting to happenings in Banda involving the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who was seen in a video protesting the military for stopping some registrants, Mr. Nitiwul said the military was just carrying out a directive by the Regional Security council which had reached an agreement with all political parties in the region not to bus people to the registration centres. He said, following the incidence of violence that took place in the area resulting in the killing of an innocent person, the Regional Security Council and all stakeholders agreed and signed an agreement to among other things, not to physically prevent others from registering and bus people to registration centres.
“If you were a military man and you saw people in vehicles coming to register, will you allow them? You will obviously stop them and ask them to walk individually to the polling stations”.
He concluded that the military will continue to stop people who are bused to registration centres.
 
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Bernard Lav