The Electoral Commission (EC) announced that 13 presidential candidates for the 2016 general election have been disqualified. The Commission gave various reasons, including alleged forgery of signatures, double voter registration by subscribers of candidates, endorsement of more than one candidate by the same subscriber, incomplete filling of forms, etc. Of course, considering the financial and other resources that the candidates “pumped” into their campaigns, they, together with their supporters are naturally, not happy that they were disqualified. It is therefore not surprising that some have even taken legal actions against the Electoral Commission.
Since I am not a legal expert, I would not wish to comment on the propriety or otherwise of the Electoral Commission’s action as far as the legalities are concerned. Second, being aware of the fact that some political parties have filed suits at the law courts against the Commission, I am careful not to be cited for contempt by going into the merits and demerits of the case. However, as a professional archivist I could not be silent on the need to be extra careful when dealing with documents.
Diligence is an important key in managing/handling documents. In the course of my 16- year practice as an archivist I have witnessed how carelessness and negligence in handling documents have caused individuals and companies millions of cedis; with some of them losing their properties. I personally had a bitter experience which nearly landed me into prison and I would not mind sharing that experience with you. In early 2000, I happened to work with a Records management Company, where I was in charge of managing the semi-active records of our clients. As part of our professional duties, every document that was transferred to our outfit was supposed to be properly listed, coded, boxed, shelved and computerized for easy and timely access when requested for by a client. The recommended and the normal practice was that after all the documents were listed, one had to do a final cross-checking to be sure that whatever document was on the list was indeed in the box before the shelving was done.
Unfortunately due to a little mistake (or should I say carelessness or negligence?) on the part of my staff, which, of course I took responsibility , that cross-checking was not done in the case of a particular consignment of records we received from one of our clients. Later, our client requested for a document, which they needed urgently to be used in support of a court case. After going through our record index, the particular document which was requested for was found on the list alright but strangely enough, we could not find it in the box in which it was supposed to be. Incidentally, it was the only document that was “missing’. All other files on the list were in the box. Of course, I had no excuse for not being able to produce the document since a copy of the list of documents in our custody was given to our client, a confirmation that the document was with us.
It was only God who knew the kind of pressure, stress and frustration that I went through in search of the document. Apparently, after the listing was done, somebody mischievously removed that particular document from the box and instead of we, also doing a final cross-checking to be sure that all the files were intact before we shelved the boxes, we failed to do so. Although we finally found the document after a thorough search and investigations, the emotional and psychological torture that I suffered as a result of the daily harassment by our client and the threats to take me to court could not be overemphasized.
I had another interesting experience some years ago when I was teaching in a private school in Accra. During an examination, a student, who thought he was smart, did not submit his examination scripts but managed to sign to suggest that he had done so. After counting the examination scripts and matching it with the total number of students in the class, I noticed that it was short by one script. Since the students were still around after the examinations, I quickly summoned them to find out who did not submit his/her script but signed. Interestingly the suspected student was the only one, out of a total number of about forty students, who had left the examination centre immediately after writing the examination. I reported the matter to the Headmaster of the school and we threatened him we would report him to the police if he did not tell the truth. He confessed and said he did so because he could not answer the questions and feared he would fail the examination. If I had not taken the trouble to cross-check the scripts, the boy would have outwitted me.
In 2006, I had to travel to Cote d’Ivoire for a family business. When I went to buy my ticket, I gave my first name as “Sammy” instead of “Samuel”. In all sincerity, I did not do so with any evil motive. To me, there was no difference between “Sammy’ and “Samuel”. I however had the shock of my life when the Immigration officers of Cote d’Ivoire at the Elubo border refused me entry into that country. According to them the name in my passport did not correspond with the name on my ticket. No amount of explanations and plea that there was no difference between Sammy and Samuel would convince them. I was detained at the boarder for almost four hours. It took the intervention of some Ghanaian immigration officers before the Cote d’Ivoire Officers reluctantly allowed me to enter Abidjan. A seemingly “harmless” thing as not providing my exact first name on a travel ticket as it appeared in my passport nearly caused me my trip.
Why did I take my time to share or narrate all these? I have done so to buttress the point that as individuals, political parties and companies we need to be extra careful when we are filling forms or providing any other form of information about ourselves. How many of us do due diligence when buying a car, a land or any other property? How much do we get to know people before we confide in them and even sometimes transact business with them? There have been several cases where fraudsters take advantage of our inability to do due diligence and be critical to dupe us. Some students pay huge sums of monies to attend tertiary institutions, only to be told that the schools in question were not accredited by the appropriate accreditation board.
I am tempted to believe that almost all the political parties which were disqualified by the Electoral Commission, made a common mistake – Not being diligent enough. In fact, if they had taken their time to critically cross-check and double check all the information they provided on their forms I do not think they would be caught up in the web of “providing inappropriate information”.
As the disqualified presidential candidates battle it out with the Electoral Commission to rescind its decision, the lesson we should all learn is summed up in one word- DILIGENCE.
The writer is an archivist
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