Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul has challenged former President John Mahama to back his claim of voter suppression and intimidation by the military in the ongoing voter registration exercise.
The former president in a social media post sighted happenings in the Volta region and Banda constituency where the military has been reportedly preventing people that seem to be NDC supporters from registering.
But addressing the media in parliament today, Mr Nitiwul said the briefs of the former president were wrong.
According to him, soldiers in Ketu South and parts of the Volta region are only following persons who illegally cross the border and claim they are Ghanaians, to their homes for verification, contrary to claims the soldiers have become citizenship inspectors.
He said “let me put it on record that the government has not conceived, the government did not plan, the government has no intention, the government will not plan and will never have an intention of suppressing any potential voter who is a Ghanaian and who is qualified, who is of sound mind, and above 18 years to register.
He noted that there are over 30,000 polling stations across the country with incidences in one or two polling stations but generally the registration has been very peaceful and has been very orderly. “As I stated before, we deployed the military to the borders to support the immigration service to ensure that the borders remain firmly closed.”
“There were incidences in one or two constituencies, notably Ketu South and Banda. Ketu South was self-inflicted. The NDC decided to deliberately mislead the people of Ketu South to think that the military was only deployed to Ketu South. Today, the figures coming out of Ketu South is very clear that there is no voter suppression in any part of Ketu South.”
Mr Nitiwul called on President Mahama to provide evidence for his claims saying ‘”if the former president has any evidence, he should bring that evidence, and the minister of defense will act. We are calling on him to provide evidence. The allegation he is making, we want evidence of that allegation.”
“For him to use Banda as the example of what he calls voter suppression, therefore, means that his briefing was wrong, his intelligence is suspect, and he is being misled,” he added.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh