Fulani community wants probe into why members were disenfranchised

Europa

May 12, 2016 1:21 PM

According to the president of the Fulani community, Sheik Osman Bari, the nomads were denied the opportunity to register because of their inability to produce documents identifying them as Ghanaians.

File photo

The Fulani community in Ghana has asked the Electoral Commission to investigate circumstances under which some 43 fulani nationals were prevented from registering in the just ended limited voter registration exercise in the Zabzugu district of the Northern Region.

Sheik Osman wondered why the nomadic herdsmen in the Yendi municipality were allowed to register and those at Zabzugu were disenfranchised.

"Honestly, with the Zabzugu district, it is not far from the boundaries of Togo, and so some of these herdsmen were moving with the cattle. So they were bussed into the Zabzugu district to register and they were denied," he told Accra-based Joy FM.

Meanwhile, the Northern regional director of the Electoral Commission, Bruce Ayisi, has said his checks reveal that the said Fulanis were "duly registered and some people challenged them."

He said the EC's District Registration Review Committee will sit on such challenge cases and make a determination as to whether a prospective registrant who has been challenged is qualified or not.

"In the circumstances, these Fulanis will be summoned to appear before the committee and the committee will go through its established procedures to make a determination on one-on-one basis," the Northern regional director of EC added.

The Limited Voters Registration exercise which began on Thursday, April 28 and ended on Sunday, May 8, was aimed at capturing the details of Ghanaians who have turned 18 since the last election in 2012.

There have been reported cases of violence, chaos and confusion at some registration centers, while in other centers, the exercise has been characterized with long queues and faulty registration machines.

The development has contributed to calls for the registration exercise to be extended, with the Electoral Commission yet to make an official decision on the matter.

Europa