Editorial: This is timely, EC

Anyone who has the security of this country at heart might have cringed when it emerged last week that the undersea cable that helps to give us internet services had been damaged. But for around the clock efforts put in by the telecom companies, our national economy, which depends virtually on digitisation would have crashed.

Since the issue was above Ghana, as her sister countries in West Africa and beyond also suffered from the same problem, the opposition parties, this time round, did not make capital out of it.

But we dare say that if this problem had occurred before, during and immediately after presidential and parliamentary elections in December, this year, our motherland would have been plunged into chaos.

Politicians and civil society organisations who are doing objective discussions about what has happened and proffering solutions would have been singing a different tune, extrapolating that the government was plotting to rig the elections.

Since many wars on the continent of Africa came as a result of disputed elections, this country would have been set on fire, as a result of such reckless statements from people who should have known better.

The Chronicle is, therefore, happy with the statement from the Electoral Commission (EC) that the December 24 presidential and parliamentary elections will not be dependent on the internet.

The process for declaration of both presidential and parliamentary elections results is done manually and, therefore, any disruption in internet services will not affect the 2024 general election, the Director of Electoral Services at the Electoral Commission, Dr Serebour Quaicoe, was quoted as saying by the state owned Daily Graphic.

Dr Quaicoe, who was speaking in an interview with the paper allayed the fears and concerns expressed by some Ghanaians that the recent Internet disruption if experienced on the Election Day might have affected the outcome of the polls.

“Our results declaration process is basically manual. The Biometric Verification Devices use SD cards with the data on them and they don’t use Internet, so there is no way the 2024 elections will be affected if there are issues with Internet connectivity, as being experienced now,” he reportedly told the paper.

Though The Chronicle finds it very interesting that the Daily Graphic decided to bury such a sensitive information from the EC in the middle pages of the paper, instead of giving it prominence at the front page, we respect their editorial decision. What is important is that the information has come out and it is going to be a public record.

But this should not be the end of the journey – the EC must take it upon itself to properly educate Ghanaians that truncation in internet connectivity or services should it happen on the day of the election cannot affect the outcome of the polls.

This will help avert the situation where those who want to see Ghana in the abyss will take advantage of lack of internet connectivity, should the problem arise, to incite the youth to cause mayhem.

As the Akan adage goes, a tree stump that can pierce your sole must always be uprooted to avoid the danger of injuring another person. In our opinion, the lack of internet connectivity problem being experienced at the moment is a serious threat to our national security.

We must, therefore, take the necessary steps as the EC had already started doing, to allay any fear that it can affect our national election should we experience it on the Election Day.

 

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