The deployment of military personnel to Ghana’s borders is not to intimidate or prevent eligible Ghanaians from registering their names in the new electoral roll but to shore up borders against the infiltration of foreigners into the country, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said.
He said the presence of the military personnel was to prevent the possible transmission of the virus from the neighbouring countries to Ghana.
The President, therefore, assured the communities along borders that the soldiers would not be permitted to operate outside the remit of their mission.
He added that the Presidency was not hatching any plan to rig the 2020 elections, saying “denying the people the opportunity to choose their leader freely is abhorrent to every fibre of my being.”
He said his hope was to be elected as the leader of the country without any political machination.
“I want to continue to be the President of a people who have given me their free consent, with the blessing of the Almighty,” he added.
The President made these remarks in an address to the nation ahead of the commencement of the voter registration exercise which begins on Tuesday, June 30, 2020, and ends on Thursday, August 6, 2020.
He said his interest was not to prevent any eligible Ghanaians from participating in the registration exercise by the Electoral Commission in order to disenfranchise them in the December 7th elections.
“I have spent all my life fighting for free, democratic institutions in our country, and I will continue in that fight for the rest of my life,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo said, he was aware of the sensitivity of the deployment of the military personnel to guard the borders at this moment, however, stopping the transmission of the virus from the neighbouring countries into Ghana was also paramount.
He urged all eligible Ghanaians to participate in the exercise to enable them to cast their votes in peace and in freedom.
Rex Mainoo Yeboah, ISD
