<<Print>>

With at least one death and several injuries recorded during the on-going biometric voter registration exercise, Madam Otiko Afisa Djaba, National Women Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has noted that the blood of Sheriff and others who have lost their lives would be on the head of President Mills if he continues to pretend that he has not seen or head of the intimidations, brutalization and killings been meted out to innocent Ghanaians who want to take part in a democratic exercise. She has wondered why the President has turned a blind eye to intimidations been meted out to people with Akan names in particular in the Odododiodio Constituency. She noted that if the President continues to turn a blind eye to those horrifying events, a member of his extended family would also go to that constituency and be assaulted just as is been done to other citizens. She also complained about the smuggling of foreigners like Nigerians, Togolese, Ivorians and minors to register in the Volta and Western regions but Akans who are indigenes of the land are been chased away and brutalized in certain areas. Otiko wondered if this is the Ashanti Agenda the President talked about in his state of the nation�s address. Otiko condemned the attack on Ursula Owusu, saying, Ghana belongs to all of us hence we all have equal right to be protected. Posterity she added would continue to judge the President in his �see no evil, hear no evil spree�. She asserted that all Ursula Owusu sought to do as a result of which she was assaulted was to educate people not to feel intimidated but come out and register, something which is a civic responsibility but has not been carried out by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE). This certainly should not have warranted an assault on her person, she said. She therefore called on all women across the length and breadth of the country as well as civic society organization and religious bodies to stand against the shame and disgrace that is characterizing our registration process. She noted that the violence and intimidation has the potential of denting our democratic credentials as a beacon of democracy in Africa. She said that the exercise would have presented a unique opportunity for us to prove to the rest of the world that our much taunted democratic credentials are not vague. The Mills-led administration she lamented has indeed failed us and proceeded that the lives of Ghanaians can no longer be entrusted into their hands. She noted however that, the NPP will continue to speak against such brutalities and intimidations no matter what the thugs in the NDC continue to do to them.