Report by Bernard K DADZIE
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to invite former President John Dramani Mahama to provide evidence supporting his allegation that the Electoral Commission (EC) allegedly thumbprinted one million ballot papers to aid President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the 2020 presidential election.
They hinted that the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) must blame itself for its loss of the 2020 general elections since it failed to assign competent agents to police all the 38,000 polling stations across the country.
“The National Democratic Congress (NDC) party and its leadership must take the full blame for their defeat and stop pointing accusing fingers at the Electoral Commission,” they said.
Former President Mahama had alleged when he addressed the Divisional Chief of Prestea Himan, Nana Nteboah Prah, recently, as part of his ‘Thank You Tour’ of the Western Region that “More than one million extra ballot papers were printed, which the EC claimed happened by mistake but on the day of the elections, some of the more than one million extra ballot papers had already been secretly thumb-printed in favour of the New patriotic Party”.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission EC has invited the police to probe a claim by former President John Dramani Mahama that the election management body thumb-printed one million excess ballot papers and stuffed them in favour of the NPP.
Deputy Communications Director of the NPP, Mr Richard Nyama attributed that the NPP has agreed with the Electoral Commission that the allegations of the former president Mahama that the Commission engaged in electoral fraud through ballot stuffing is an allegation bordering on criminality and must certainly be probed.
“We are calling on the Inspector General of Police IGP, to invite him for questioning and for the former president to make available all evidence of the said one million stuffed ballots to the Police for the Police for appropriate charges to be brought against the said personnel of the Electoral Commission who engaged in the said action,” the NPP said.
According to him, the leadership of the NDC, during the last election, was so incompetent that they assigned national officers “who went to drink tea and biscuit” at the national collation centre otherwise known as the Strong Room at the Electoral Commission’s headquarters in Accra.
“What was the NDC, as the largest opposition political party, supposed to do when it got wind of the fact that some ballots have allegedly been stuffed ahead of the elections?” he asked.
Mr. Nyama, disclosed that the difference between the two candidates then was 500,000 votes with 1 million ballots stuffed in Nana Akufo Addo. Therefore, it needs no say that former President Mahama would have won the election by 500,000 instead of Nana Akufo Addo.
“This so-called evidence was not even mentioned in the NDC petition to the Supreme Court. The question is if President Mahama heard such information and evidence, why did he not submit same to the Supreme Court as part of his petition?
“If he doesn’t trust the Supreme Court, then the police should give him the chance to make the said evidence available to give him an opportunity to appeal the first Supreme Court verdict. So the verdict that has been handed out can be appealed if he submits this because this we think is fresh evidence and the police will assist him to do that,” he said.
Mr. Richard Nyama, therefore called on the IGP and the police CID, to as a matter of urgency, call the former president as a person of interest and a witness in this matter.
“The former president is not a serial caller who is entitled to make frivolous statements and get away with them. He has led this country before and his words must count for something,” he said.
He stressed that former President John Mahama speaks to how incompetent and unprepared they are for the next elections.
“Instead of blaming everyone but themselves, it’s time for former President Mahama and the NDC to take a look in the mirror and start cleaning their own mess to have any chance in 2024 race,” Mr. Nyamah said.