We have followed the discovered ballot paper issue in Kumasi since news about the blemish made the headlines on both social and traditional media yesterday.
A number of retired top police officers have punched holes in the manner in which the subject was handled.
No sooner had the story broken out than COP Kofi Boakye came out to debunk it on the premises that the ballot papers were fake.
That sounds interesting, especially coming from a top police officer, a regional police commander for that matter. Listening to the retired superior police officers, we could not agree more with them.
One of the officers had this to say about the police blunder. “The police in Kumasi should have laid surveillance for the suspect who dropped the bag at the location. That person would have turned up to retrieve the cargo. The police would have pounced on him and conduct a critical interrogation of him.”
Such an interrogation would have led to many important discoveries in our estimation, given the recent suspicion that some spent printing plates had been smuggled out from a printing house involved in the production of some election materials. The uproar which this generated was too fresh for us to rehash it.
What happened in Kumasi can be likened to fake currencies discovered in the possession of a suspect. Would the Police dismiss such a discovery as nonsense because the notes were fake and not do anything about it?
The issue that the ballot papers do not bear serial numbers does not matter because in the evening when the voting is over such details are hardly considered. We recall the agenda of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to use all means to increase their voter population by a million and are tempted to think that such so-called fake ballot papers could be part of the project.
Such an evil plot would depend on varied dirty arrangements, one of which was to stuff ballot papers on Election Day.
We have also heard about how it was being alleged that the fake papers belong to the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Be it as it may, the Kumasi Police should have tarried a while before jumping the gun and somewhat berating those behind the removal of the lid.
There are ballot papers in the system and it does not matter who are those behind them.
It matters, however, that the intention of those who commissioned the project of their production is evil and not one which is favourable to our democratic civilization.
The elections, which are due tomorrow, should not only be free and fair but credible.
To achieve this feat, which is simple yet difficult, behooves not only the Electoral Commission to do their work with the bigger picture of Ghana as the cornerstone but the law enforcement agents to be as professional as possible.
Any attempt at pleasing one side of the political divide can only spell an avoidable disturbance which our economically troubled country cannot afford at this time.
We must nonetheless congratulate the good police personnel who would not fold their arms as bad elements within the Service and within some political groupings attempt to destroy this country.
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