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Due to a few pushs I am forced to pen these few words all though I believe all that I can  say has been said already…

WELL AFTER ALL SAID AND DONE THE TIME HAS COME AGAIN

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…I remember the year 2000 when I cast my vote for the first time. Yeah, don’t get me wrong, am still the small Oswald you know. But I followed my uncle to the polling station then (at 5years) and although I wasn’t allowed into the booth, I was made to believe that I had cast my vote. Well you cannot really blame me at that age but if i leave myself for any imbecile to decieve me at this stage that I have voted while deep down my heart, I know I haven’t, then I may as well sit home and learn a new recipe.

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Unfortunately though, my numerous electorates, young and old, first timers and experts have readied their voter IDs and are going to stamp either on “TOASO” or “CHANGE” and by “change” I mean the elephant, or the few minority, any other candidate, but the pitiful part is they still wouldn’t have cast their vote but would simply be in a make believe world, just as I was in 2000.

The fact is that it’s less than 24hrs to the election and there’s hardly anything anyone can say or do to inform your choice. Fine by me; but when you enter that booth or screen or whatever the Electoral Commission decides to provide tomorrow, remember that your vote counts to the determination of the future of 29 million people. 29 million people who may or may not know what is good for them ergo you calling yourself an electorate, the select few that are going to make that vital decision tomorrow,

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DO NOT VOTE BECAUSE

1. You are an Ewe and some candidate has come to tell you “this is our party and our tradition so you would be a fool to vote for the other side.” C’mon you’re 18years minimum , so I am very well aware that you know this mode of electing leaders is not indigenous to Ghana and therefore not our tradition. Or because you are an Akan and are of the belief that no other tribe is fit to rule

2. Of circle interchange some other road leading to your village, perhaps your bedroom or where not, for to paraphrase all of them ‘everyone does developmental projects’ and so voting on that is just merry-go-round

3. Of some other personal affiliation, for remember Jean Jacques Rousseau “the common good”, your interest should not overshadow the fate of 29 million Ghanaians.

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4. Do not vote on personality, for that can be deceptive. People pretend and pretend good, am sure you know them so no need to mention names, besides being deceptive, power corrupts and apsolute power corrupts”…. your guess is as good as mine.

5. And please do not go into that booth with the aim of punishing a single candidate, for the foul of one does not inevitably mean the fair of the other. So do not go there to vote against someone because of “dead goat syndrome comment” or “all die be die” for am sure that though we are all abhorred by those comments, they do regret them.

6. I know I won’t vote on mere campaign promises, because come to face it, none of them live up to that.

The very reason why I can tell you solemnly that I haven’t made up my mind who to vote for is the absence of Ideology in Ghana politics.

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Just like a Christians life is meaningless without the Holy Spirit so is politics meaningless without ideology but I doubt if some of these tycoons are aware of their party’s ideology.

If I was in the States, the choice would have been easy, because parties rule with Ideology not just mere panic reactions or manifestos, but hey! This is Ghana and I am a Ghanaian so I have to make lemonade.

Since none of these parties consider their ideology when drawing manifestos I hardly believe they will execute anything in relation to that, evident is they don’t.

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So petaining to Ideology, if you share my opinion, you just sit down and reflect on which of these parties really practise  what their Ideology say, at least even the minimum degree, then I believe to be fair to the game if politics, that party deserves my and your vote, because if I go to vote for the party claiming to align with the ideology i drive by, meanwhile none of their policies reflect that, I may as well stop regarding myself a politician.

So the brief if what I said to you today is that, do not “TOASO”  or  “CHANGE” just for the fun of it, lest it haunts you for the next 4 years.

Sit down, take their manifestos, match it to their ideology and if history is anything to go by, do some comparison before making your choice.

Above all,

VOTE FOR PEACE✌???????

VOTE WISELY??????

????VOTE GHANA …????

… for minus that, you just would have done what I did in 2000 elections, go to the polling station and back without voting,  of course you may have stamped the ballot paper but in my books, that doesn’t equal voting.

Oswald K Azumah.

©2016