The Federation of Muslim Councils (FMC) has called on the Electoral Commission (EC) to review the dates for its intended new voter registration exercise, scheduled for April 18 to May 23, 2020.
The council said the timing was inconvenient for the Muslim community because it coincided with their month of fasting, Ramadan, which would, this year, start on April 23, and end on May 23.
A statement signed and issued by Al- Hajj Muhammad Amir Kpakpo Addo , Secretary- General of FMC said, “While we concede the importance of this national exercise of compiling a new voters register, [we]firmly believe the timing of the exercise is just not unfavourable.”
“The voter register exercises in our part of the globe is characterised by hassle including queuing for long hours, sometimes in the sun and for days before on goes through. This is not the kind of torment one would want to see a fasting person goes through.”
The statement recounted media reports of how people got exhausted and collapsed after waiting long in queues in certain parts of country to acquire the National Identity Card even when it was not a fasting period.
“While we wish the EC well in its endeavours to execute this important national exercise, we also wish to draw attention to the discomfiture the exercise will cause Muslims nationwide as it coincides with the fasting period.”
“We hope and pray too that the importance the Islamic calendar and the fasting period will not be lost sight of,” the statement said.
It hoped that the ongoing tripartite negotiations among the Eminent Advisory Committee of the EC, Inter Party Advisory Committee and EC would be fruitful in the national interest.
BY TIMES REPORTER
