EC Hot!

3 Officials Arrested

Published in Daily Guide on February 18, 2013

Salamatu Usman arrested by the Police

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
It appears Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan and the Electoral Commission (EC) are desperate, in a quest to gather ‘further and better particulars’ to defend the commission at the Supreme Court over the petition filed by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) challenging the outcome of the 2012 general elections.
The EC has dispatched its officials to the regions after collecting evidence from the petitioners, the three New Patriotic Party (NPP) leaders including the party’s December 2012 presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to get all unsigned documents authenticated in view of the court dispute over the December polls.
Other petitioners challenging the commission’s declaration of John Dramani Mahama as President are Nana Addo’s running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the party chairman, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey.
But some of the secret agenda have leaked into the public domain, as some of the officials who participated in the elections have declined to sign.
There were a number of reports over the weekend of attempts by officials of the EC to get some Presiding Officers, especially in the Northern Region, to now sign ‘pink sheets’ used during the disputed elections, two months after the elections.
One such incident which got to the attention of DAILY GUIDE happened in Walewale where the Presiding Officer, a certain Abdul Basit Musah, was approached by the Returning Officer for the EC, one Richard Ayamba, to append his signature to the document.
Interestingly, the issue of unsigned pink sheets is a major part of the irregularities the NPP has complained of, and is seeking to prove that they affected the conduct and outcome of the elections and for which the Supreme Court is being asked to overturn the declaration of President John Dramani Mahama as winner of the presidential elections conducted by the EC.
Abdul Basit, who manned the ‘Cotton Office’ polling station in Walewale, confirmed the incident to DAILY GUIDE when confronted with the information upon a tip-off that he was involved in some underhand dealings with some EC officials.
On the contrary, he narrated that he was in school last week Thursday when a visibly desperate official of the Electoral Commission, Richard Ayamba, came to him and requested that he sign an unsigned pink sheet from his polling station.
He indicated that the request by the EC official baffled him since according to him, the same man had crosschecked everything on the sheet when he submitted it on December 8 2012, after collating the figures and gave the green light for the ‘statement of polls’ and declaration of results from the polling station to be included in the results for the Walewale constituency.
Complicity
However, he declined the request on the basis that copies of the unsigned sheet had already been given to representatives of the various political parties who were present and for which reason signing the sheet could make him complicit in an attempt to cover up wrongdoing in view of the Supreme Court case.
Upon refusal, Basit claimed Mr Ayamba, the EC official, became furious and asked him whether he wanted to put them and the Electoral Commission in trouble.
Basit said he set conditions for the officer to fulfill if he indeed wanted him to append his signature to the document.
He asked the EC official to assemble all polling agents present at the polling station on the election day or at least gather representatives of the parties within the constituency before he would sign, a condition he said the official could not meet.
Apart from that, he also demanded that the EC official should retrieve all the pink sheets given to the political parties for him to sign all of them, a condition he could also not meet since according to him, the EC official said that would waste time.
This was said to have infuriated Mr Ayamba who then decided to leave. But before leaving, he allegedly told Basit that his pink sheet was the only one which was left to be signed and that six other presiding officers in the East Mamprusi district, which had the Walewale and Yagaba Kubori constituencies, had all signed theirs and these were subsequently dispatched to the EC headquarters in Accra.
Justification
The Returning Officer, Richard Ayamba, indeed confirmed approaching Abdul Basit with the said pink sheet though he saw nothing wrong with his actions.
“There is nothing fishy about it,” he told DAILY GUIDE, insisting that the forms were brought to the Regional Head Office of the EC in Tamale for him to get those who did not sign the pick sheets to append their signatures to them.
Asked why he was taking the pink sheets around for them to be signed two months after the elections, Mr Ayamba responded: “It didn’t come from me as an individual because we had handed over all the statement of polls to our officers. So it was just because I was the Returning Officer that it was brought for me from the region. I didn’t go to manufacture the pink sheets.”
But Northern Regional Director for the EC, Sylvester Kanyi did not tell whether or not he had indeed instructed Returning Officers in the region to go round and get Presiding Officers who did not sign their pink sheets to do so, when DAILY GUIDE contacted him.
He claimed to have only heard about the development on radio while in Kumasi and therefore declined to make further comments until he had been fully briefed on the matter.

Arrest Me!

-Owusu Bempah Tells Police

Published on February 1, 2013

Ernest Owusu Bempah

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

Deputy Communications Director for the National Democratic Party (NDP), Ernest Owusu Bempah, has dared the police to arrest him.
It follows a supposed invitation extended to some leading members of the Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) by the Madina police.
Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic  Party (NPP), Sammi Awuku, claimed to have received a call from the Madina District Police Commander on Wednesday, asking him to come along with leading members of the group including Owusu Bempah, James Kwabena Bonfeh of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), Abu Ramadan of the People’s National Convention (PNC)  and Charles Owusu of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), to answer certain questions pertaining to a rally they held over the weekend.
But speaking on Oman FM’s ‘National Agenda’ morning show yesterday, an obviously angry Owusu Bempah said, “Me as an individual, I will not go.”
“I am not going anywhere; let them come and arrest me,” he said, asking, “What have I done?”

Basis
According to him, he had not received any official invitation from the police either by phone or formal letter.
“If we are organizing a programme dubbed ‘Let My Vote Count’ and my friends invite me and my party also believes our votes are missing and I go to speak at the event on behalf of my flagbearer and my party, what has that got to do with the police?” he quizzed, insisting, “If the Madina police want to invite me, they should formally write to my flagbearer or my party general secretary and if they give the permission, I will come but now I’m not coming anywhere.”
The man nicknamed ‘Billy Goat emphasised, “I won’t go”, whilst asking rhetorically, “What I’m going to do there?”
He claimed to have only heard of the supposed invitation on radio and that nobody had sent him invitation either through the phone or an official letter, insisting, “That is not the procedure for the police to invite anybody to come.”
Owusu Bempah wondered, “What has the Madina Police got to do with it when somebody has gone to speak”, adding that even before his arrest and subsequent detention by officials of the Bureau of National Investigations last year, they called him on the phone to invite him even though he demanded an official letter before he went.

The Odds
“This time round, it’s not as if you will be sitting somewhere and somebody tells you, ‘you have been invited’ (by the police) and you get up and pick your bag and go to the Madina Police station; I don’t do my things like that so I’m not going because I don’t have an issue with anybody there,” he emphasized.
For him, these were some of the things that increased tension in the country, wondering what the police and the security agencies did when a leading member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kakra Essamuah, said on Asempa FM that he would do or support a coup d’état should the Supreme Court rule in favour of the NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo in the ongoing trial.
In spite of making that treacherous statement, Owusu-Bempah said, “he (Kakra Essamuah) is walking about freely”, wondering what had also become of the infamous ‘Yaw Boateng Gyan tape’ in which the national organiser of the ruling NDC was heard hatching a plot with some party faithful of his intentions to use some NDC boys as agents of the National Security to intimidate people during the elections.
“Up till date, have you heard that any of the security agencies has invited him?” he asked, emphasizing, “As for me, I will not go and I’m saying it that if they want they should come and pick me up like a fowl.”
He stated, “We are not living in elected dictatorship; we are not living in a jungle warfare”, stressing, “We are living in a sovereign state where human right is very very important.”
“If these things continue to go on, it’s too volatile and too fragile for this country,” he noted.

Police chase Sammi Awuku, 4 others

Published in Daily Guide on January 31, 2013

Sammy Awuku

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

The police at Madina have invited Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammi Awuku and others including the National Youth Organiser of the Peoples National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan, for questioning.
The rest include the parliamentary candidate for the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) in the Kintampo North constituency in the 2012 elections, James Kwabena Bomfeh, aka Kabila, with their colleagues Ernest Owusu Bempah and Charles Owusu of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and Progressive People’s Party (PPP) respectively.
Mr Awuku confirmed the invitation to DAILY GUIDE: “I received a call from the Madina Police division; the district police commander who said he was calling to invite me for an interaction and questioning concerning the ‘Let My Vote Count Alliance’ that was launched over the weekend at Dome-Kwabenya, Taifa-Norway park. ”
“He said he wants to know what it’s all about, he also wants to know our intentions, he also wants to know why we had the rally,” he noted.
Originally, they were supposed to have reported yesterday morning but Mr Awuku indicated to the Madina district commander it was not possible for him to make it to the station since he had other engagements for which reason the meeting was rescheduled for 10:00 a.m. this morning. But at press time DAILY GUIDE learnt that Monday has been fixed for the meeting.
The NPP man narrated “he also enquired about the organizers and the conveners” but said “I told him I was a speaker at the event. Nonetheless, I know that the ‘Let My Vote Count Alliance’ was not a secret cult so I will also reach out to the organizers and we will have a date with him tomorrow” (being today).
Mr. Awuku said he has since informed the aforementioned individuals who are equally wanted by the police for questioning.
The group, according to Mr. Awuku, has since informed their lawyers and would meet the police on Monday.
However, an obviously bemused Sammi Awuku told DAILY GUIDE “I think that there is so much tension in the system; any attempt by the security agencies and the government of the day to cow people into submission, to victimize people going about their legitimate duties and so on will also serve as a trigger to  the tension in the system.”
In view of this, he said “I’m only cautioning the government and also the security agencies to be very level-headed in these matters.”
Sabotage
A statement issued by the ‘Let My Vote Count Alliance’ (LMVCA) yesterday asked the police and government to stay off their backs.
The statement which was signed by leading members of the group including David Asante, James Kwabena Bomfeh, Charles Owusu, Abu Ramadan, Charles Nii Teiko Tagoe and Maame Afua Akoto said they were aware of a deliberate plan by the National Security and the National Communications Authority (NCA) to sabotage one of their major partners and one of the most popular radio stations in the country, Oman FM.
This, they said, was in view of the fact that the frequency of Oman FM has been interrupted since the launch of the Alliance last Sunday.
Government Antics
“Information that we have picked up from sources close to the system suggests that the National Security and National Communications Authority are behind this apparent, deliberate act of sabotage,” the group alleged.
They claimed to have picked up signals that suggested the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the National Security apparatus were uncomfortable with their activities and operations and were therefore determined to use any means necessary to destroy it.
Leadership of the LMVCA however reminded the two government institutions that “Ghana is not a police state and that the right to assemble, the right to free speech are entrenched provisions in Ghana’s Constitution and we would not allow any person or organisation to take this right away,” whilst indicating their commitment to a peaceful, non-violent expression of concerns.
That notwithstanding, they noted “no amount of state-sponsored intimidation and harassment can stop us” and consequently reminded President John Dramani Mahama, whom they referred to as ‘disputed President’ that “he would not succeed in bullying his way to hold on to power” insisting “not even the KGB tactics and police brutalities of the Ukrainian authorities could stop the masses from protesting and the Supreme Court from ruling that their presidential election was rigged.”
This, the statement said, was because “if such state-sponsored act of terrorism could work against the tide of democracy in former communist state, Ukraine, then it certainly wouldn’t work in Ghana here.”
The group has since asked President Mahama to, as it were, “pull back from turning Ghana into a police state in this period before the Supreme Court ruling” and urged him to bring a stop to these deliberate acts of interference with the operations of Oman FM.