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The Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil has challenged the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to provide evidence to substantiate their claims of a stolen verdict in the just-ended December 7 polls.
His comment comes on the back of various allegations levelled against the Electoral Commission (EC) after the 2020 presidential election results were declared that the Commission liaised with the ruling party to rig the elections.
Regardless of some mistakes on the part of the EC, he indicated that even if the NDC’s concerns are acknowledged, the outcome of the 2020 elections would remain the same.
“We have looked at so many things and there is no way Nana Addo is going to fall below 50%. There’s, however, a serious thing and it comes back to the EC. The figures show that the EC did not just make arithmetic mistakes in the beginning, but in correcting them, they seem to have used figures that will confirm their earlier fractions,” he said.That notwithstanding, he indicated that the NDC would need to produce “evidence of such materiality that it can make a change in the ultimate declaration that has been made”.
“So NDC should feel free to say whatever that they can say but until they can bring up material evidence which means we have to change the results, they need to change their tone a bit and not make everything look like it was a stolen elections,” he added.
He further stated that the EC is partly to blame for the various allegations made by the NDC since the commission failed to provide accurate figures during some of its pronouncements and declarations in various regions.
Mr Bentil, however, added that it was important that the NDC makes its case against the infractions witnessed in the elections in order for the necessary corrections to be made by the EC going forward.
“I would be happy if the NDC made this case to the extent that too many infractions and avoidable mistakes happened and ‘yes,’ even if the outcome does not change, in future, these avoidable mistakes must be avoided,” he said.
Also, speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Tamale Central MP, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed alleged that ballot papers were printed in excess to favor the ruling NPP.
According to him, true to the NDC’s concerns, ballot papers with EC stamps and serial numbers were found with people, which shouldn’t have happened.
“For example in Ejisu, a gentleman was arrested with 10 ballot papers.”
“He was in an SUV vehicle with about 2 or 3 people with a bag that contained a lot of the ballot papers with stamps. All these ballot papers were thumb-printed for President Akufo-Addo,” he said.
The former deputy Trades and Industry Minister under the Mahama government further alleged that election results were manipulated in some constituencies.
“…in Gushegu, President Akufo-Addo’s votes were increased by 100 while the votes obtained by John Dramani Mahama was decreased by 900 votes,” he said.
However, Kofi Bentil maintains that these claims need to be substantiated with concrete evidence.
Source:myjoyonline
