Kofi Osei-Ameyaw
A New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential hopeful, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, has accused the Electoral Commission (EC) of implementing a grand conspiracy scheme to prevent agents of the party from collecting and collating data on newly registered persons in the on-going limited registration exercise.
He alleged that the grand scheme currently being implemented in perceived strongholds of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), is an attempt by the EC to help the ruling party to rig the 2016 general elections again.
This, according to the NPP stalwart, came to light when he toured some registration centres in the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta Regions to acquaint himself with what was going on at some centres.
He mentioned some of the registration centres where such grand scheme was being implemented as Teshie Presby School and Teshie Children’s Library in the Ledzokuku constituency of the Greater Accra region; Akatsi RC in the Akatsi South constituency of the Volta Region and Aboase centre in the Asuogyaman constituency of the Eastern Region.
According to him, on the first two days of the registration exercise, NPP agents were allowed to independently record data of prospective voters so that they could compare them with those of the EC officials, but were asked to stop that exercise on the third day: and since then they had been prevented from carrying out that exercise.
Mr. Osei-Ameyaw, who is the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Asuogyaman in the Eastern Region, made the accusation at a press conference yesterday to register his resentment against EC’s attempt to ‘mar’ the 2016 general elections.
The NPP presidential hopeful told journalists that the 2012 election petition brought one thing to the fore – which was that the voters’ register contained names of ineligible voters whereas the outcome of every election was determined at the polling stations.
‘After the Supreme Court had ruled on the election petition against the NPP petitioners, it was clear that the NDC respondents benefitted from the seeming benevolence of the EC as a result of the ineptitude of EC officials supervising the elections and the NPP, which I am seeking to lead in the 2016 general elections, was the big loser,’ he noted, adding that as a candidate who has the interest of his party and the nation at heart, he would not sit down for such mistakes to be repeated.
He therefore called on Ghanaians and the opposition parties to prevail on the EC to allow party agents to also record their data at the registration centres for proper synchronization of EC’s data so that they (Ghanaians/parties) would not be overtaken by events.
‘EC officials are humans and can make mistakes as it happened during the 2012 general elections; so our party agents must also be allowed to independently collect and collate their own data to compare with those of the EC officials at the registration centres,’ he charged, adding that if the EC was bent on preventing NPP agents from doing that then it would be better for the NPP to withdraw its agents from the registration centres because they would be of no use there.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr
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