Bernard Mornah's reaction to CID invitation; I only cautioned the EC

The Chairman of the Peoples National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Mornah has said he only cautioned the Electoral Commission (EC) on the chaos that could come up should it decide to go ahead with the new voters' registration exercise.

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has invited Mr Mornah to assist with an investigation it is conducting into an allegation of threat against the EC, should it decide to go ahead with the compilation of a new voter's register in late June 2020.

The police have sent an invitation letter to him asking that he should report at the CID headquarters on Tuesday, June 2, 2020, at 10 am.

"The CID Headquarters is investigating a case in which you [Mornah] were alleged to have threatened to resist any attempt by the Electoral Commission (EC) to compile a new voter's register for the 2020 general election."

"You were also heard in a video interview to have threatened "that people who are already Ghanaians and already registered are going to be taken out of the register, don't you think confusion will come at the registration and if confusion come there, you think the EC staff will be safe, we will beat each other there, we will kill each other there if that is what the EC want to lead this nation to," the invitation letter dated May 28, 2020 and signed by Barima Tweneboah Sasraku II, a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) for the Director General of CID said.

But in a radio interview on Accra based Citi FM on Thursday evening, Mr Mornah said his statement was a caution to the EC if it was "intending to flip us [Ghanaians] through this dangerous path, they should know that there would be confusion."

"And so it is a caution. If cautions become threats, I will not run away from it. But you know, I don't know who thought the CID English in school because my English teacher when he sees this statement will know that it is a caution and that he taught me English well, and that a caution cannot represent a threat. But if they see it as a threat, then I may have to bring my English teacher to tell them that caution is different from threat."

Mr Mornah who reiterated that he made the statement at a press conference on May 26, 2020, organised by the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN) insisted that "I have nothing to run away from. The Electoral Commission is messing our democracy and we must do everything to resist and we will resist it. There is nothing that will allow us to sit down and allow this Electoral Commission to slip our democracy away from the peace and stability that we have enjoyed."

"And so when we are telling the Electoral Commission and alerting that, oh! your action can lead us on a very perilous path and you come and say that we are threatening, I don't know, so I will visit the CID, I've told my lawyer that I will be going there and if my lawyer wants to come fine, but if my lawyer wants to water down the words, I will ask him to go because I am responsible enough to own my words."

Mr Mornah insisted that his polling station is Sankana and that the number of people who have passports there are not up to 10.

"The polling station is Sankana, those of us who have Ghana Cards, I'm not sure we are up to 100. Meanwhile there are over 800 people in my polling station, I'm not talking about the entire Sankana, because we have four polling stations in Sankana. And so when we go there and then we don't have the Ghana Card, not because we don't want it but because you [NIA] did not give us the opportunity to obtain it."

"Even those who have registered, they don't have the card because you [NIA] could not print it for them and so when they have to receive the cards, you don't just bring the cards and go and stand in Sankana market and start mentioning their names to come for it, you'll have to carry your equipment there so that they can come and place their fingers again to authenticate that they are the owners of the cards that you are talking about."

"That processes alone, it will take time. So we don't have the cards that you are using as source document and you are saying that you are going to compile a new register on that and I'm alerting you that there will be confusion and you say that I'm threatening you, there would be confusion la!," Mr Mornah said.

Read also: PNC walks out of IPAC meeting on compilation of a new voters’ register.

Below is a copy of the CID invitation letter

Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh 

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