Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Hon. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah has said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their campaign chairman, Mr. Peter Mac Manu, should stop throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians in claiming the NPP does not need the help of the Electoral Commission (EC) and the National Identification Authority (NIA) to win the 2020 elections.
Mr Afryie-Ankrah has reaffirmed his party’s stance that the NPP is scheming in an ungodly alliance with the two-state agencies to rig the 2020 elections, positing that the ruling party should stop feigning innocence because they know the accusation is true.
Making reference to NPP’s attitude towards elections in the immediate past, Mr Afriyie-Ankrah said even in a simple bye election as Ayawaso West Wuogon, the NPP had to send thugs to shoot and maim innocent Ghanaians to win at all cost, indicating this should be proof enough for Ghanaians to pay attention to what NDC is saying. He said if the ruling party could indulge in such a barbaric act as that bloody spectacle in Ayawaso West Wuogon just to win a bye election, then there is no limit to what they can do in their desperation to retain power in the general elections.
The NDC on Thursday held a press conference and revealed a grand scheme by the NPP and the two-state agencies to rig the 2020 elections in favour of the ruling party. The party said the scheme was set into motion way back in 2017.
Addressing the press conference, chairman of the NDC, Mr. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, told the media at the party’s headquarters in Accra that the NPP, EC, and NIA are in an ungodly alliance and scheming to rig the elections, saying. “…it does appear that the Jean Mensah-led EC, ably supported by the Ken Attafuah-led NIA are only interested in rigging the 2020 general elections for President Akufo-Addo and the ruling New Patriotic Party through voter suppression in NDC strongholds.”
The NDC makes the point that President Akufo-Addo kicked into motion his rigging agenda immediately he assumed power in 2017 by causing the National Identity Register Act, 2008 (Act 750) that governed the functions and operations of the NIA to be changed and brought into effect The National Identity Register (Amendment Act), 2017 (Act 950), which excluded the Voters’ ID card and the Driver’s License from the list of registration requirements without any legal or legitimate basis.
This the NDC chairman said “…was part of a well calculated scheme to disenfranchise a good number of Ghanaians from acquiring the national ID card (Ghana card), which was to be used subsequently, as one of the registration requirements in the new voters’ register plan they had long hatched.”
The NDC chairman pointed out how the rigging agenda is being executed by the NIA within the conduct of the national identification registration exercise to deliberately disadvantage NDC’s strongholds. He explained it is the reason the exercise was properly carried out in NPP strongholds as against the haphazard manner it was done in NDC strongholds.
Again, the party said they are not surprised that the EC is continuing from where the NIA is ending, by stating that the breeder document for the needless new biometric voter registration is the scarce NIA card.
But the NPP campaign chairman, addressing a counter press conference same day, denied NDC’s assertions. According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government has performed so well that it does not need to rig the elections to retain power.
Mr Afriyie-Ankrah who was in a discussion of the matter on Joy FM’s Newsfile over the weekend however reminded the NPP of their barbaric act at the bloody Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency bye election. “Even Ayawaso West Wuogon, you had to send thugs to shoot innocent people to win,” he said. He said if the NPP, is their desperation, needed guns to win a simple bye-election, then it is easier for them to solicit the help of the NIA and EC to rig the 2020 elections.
He also reminded the NPP of their leader, President Akufo-Addo’s ‘all die be die’ philosophy which underpins their decisions and actions as far as elections are concerned.
He said the disrespectful posturing of the Akufo-Addo appointed EC boss and her deputy, Dr Bossman Asare towards the opposition, especially the NDC is not good enough.
He also bemoaned the Jean Meansah-led EC’s disregard for the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), pointing out that is what caused the EC’s Constitutional Instrument (CI) for the conduct of the elections to be withdrawn from Parliament twice already after being laid because of basic mistakes, described by the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, as incompetence.
Many a Ghanaian believes that the NDC let their guards down in the 2016 elections and that enabled the NPP to indulge in widespread electoral malfeasance across the country, in an election they tout themselves to have won by some one million votes margin.
On December 8, a day after the 2016 elections, then EC chairperson, Mrs Charlotte Osei, announced that the EC’s system was compromised and that had posed some challenge to the Commission’s work regarding the collation of the presidential results.
Following that as many as five parliamentary elections results challenged by NDC’s candidates for a recount after being declared in favour of NPP’s candidates turned in favour of the NDC after recount.
When President Akufo-Addo removed the former EC boss from office and appointed the pliable Mrs Jean Mensah to replace her, the view was strongly expressed that the move was part of the NPP’s election rigging agenda.
NPP’s Kennedy Agyapong is also on record to have threatened to tell Ghanaians how the NPP won the 2016 elections, if pushed.
Recently, Mr. Peter Wuni Baaga, a suspended parliamentary aspirant of the NPP has reportedly confessed that he played a major role in rigging the 2004 parliamentary election for NPP’s Hajia Alima Mahama in the Nalerigu-Gambaga Constituency in the North East Region.
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