This year’s B.E.C.E. exams kicks off on Monday 8th July, 2024. Will our “learned colleague” Jean Mensa and her doctorate-wielding commandants pass the basic education Math paper? No, it is not a ridiculous question to ask. Not when the E.C. ammonia-smeared itself with the pungent smell of failing at basic Arithmetic operations such as ratios and proportions. In declaring the 2020 general election results, it was obvious the E.C. had not mastered Arithmetic principles such as if less, more divide, and if more, less divide to extract corresponding percentages garnered by the candidates.
Our collective error at the time was to have thought that the 2020 election result fiasco was a blip that could be ignored for a first-timer. Madam Charlotte Osei was a first-timer in 2016 as well. Nevertheless, it was worth giving Madam Jean Mensah the benefit of the doubt she deserved. Time, they say, is the ultimate arbiter of success or failure.
In a recent #LetTheCitizenKnow post, the E.C. published a pie chart of 2024 limited voter registration data on the distribution of males vs. females. The chart legend shamefully did not correspond with the chart itself. Now, it is important to note that precision is the beauty of quantitative representation. Unlike social science, numerical computations and associated logic are not subject to opinion. They are binary, either correct or incorrect. Thus, repeating such avoidable “mistakes” (as the E.C. puts it) more especially when it borders on basic Math is suggestive of gross incompetence at the subject matter. For the high office the E.C. and the quality of resources allocated, these occurrences beckon a reputational damage no spin doctoring can remedy.
While trying to wrap our heads around the pie chart brouhaha, there was news of E.C. asking media houses to hold a first response letter (issued at night)to Franklin Cudjoe’s criticism of how the E.C, is culpable in disenfranchising the people of the SALL area. By dawn, a second letter was issued with two key areas of the first letter amended. Again? Is someone deliberately sabotaging the E.C.? To what end are these seemingly engineered “mistakes”? Otherwise, are we being programmed to latently accept that the EC can only get it correct after failed attempts? Finally, what does this mean for the sanctity and integrity of the 2024 general election results?
Will Jean Mensa of IEA trust a candidate who changes their response to questions at the presidential debate? Will Jean Mensa trust her child’s class teacher who changes test scores five (5) times? At this rate, someone will have to answer whether the E.C. for all the numerous appointments and overhead cost burden on the taxpayer, has internal system of control and quality assurance for information and publicity.
On the issue of the missing laptops, BVDs and BVRs, shouldn’t it be nearly impossible for anyone to STEAL these critically important artifacts of the EC? Yes, we certainly understand that no security environment is entirely watertight, however, it is the utmost responsibility of the EC to disclose a compromise to all stakeholders and proffer viable remedial actions that restore confidence. The EC rather swept this event under the carpet and set out to trivialize their relevance to the integrity of the elections ahead.
Clearly, our dearly beloved E.C. is a pampered and spoiled child. When we brazenly refused to make her accountable to public Ghana during the 202o election petition. Even traditional ADR sessions allow both sides to be heard before passing judgment. It therefore suffices to say that the E.C.’s barefaced acts of impunity we have had to endure are predicate on that singular act of omission by the vanguards of our justice system.
Against all reasons of distance, inconvenience, and the risk of disenfranchising a great number of registrants, the E.C. went ahead to limit registration centers to the district offices of the E.C. Is it nuclear chemistry to appreciate the submission of opposition parties and CSOs to alleviate the pain of Ghanaians when they perform their civil duties? Why does the E.C. find alternative opinion rancid, and defiantly proceed with decisions as far as the government concurs? Why has the government of the day conveniently become surrogate defense spokesperson of the E.C.?
Still, without remorse, the E.C. continues to deflect responsibility for not allowing people of the SALL area representation at the 8th parliament of the 4th republic. What a shame! The legislative process of creating a constituency leaves the buck at the doorsteps of the E.C. nonetheless.
Fault not the seer, for he is only a foreteller of destined future events. Our pampered and spoiled child will soon point the cold steel barrel of a gun at our temples.
Rather than mastering the art of dishing out scathing defensive responses to critics, our dear Jean Adukwei Mensa, third E.C. of the 4th republic needs to understand that people have fought and bled for this country. From Joseph de Graft-Hayford, J.E. Caseley-Hayford, Kwegyir Aggrey, our Independence Heroes, through J.J. Rawlings to Ahmed Hussein-Suale, Martin Kpebu, Ernesto Yeboah, and Oliver Barker-Vormawor, people are still fighting to save a country that flows rich with minerals, oil and native flora and fauna. It does not take much to destroy a country. It took a careless radio operative to plunge Rwanda into civil unrest. Please, leave the country the way you met if you cannot make it better. God bless our homeland Ghana!
ZEKPAH, DAVID.
Executive Director,
The 1957 Group.
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