The apparent dogfight for national executive positions in the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has entrapped the party’s General Secretary, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah to lay bare the dirty linen of the party for public scrutiny in a leaked secret tape.
He disclosed that the 2020 election petition former President John Mahama and the NDC filed at the Supreme Court was only a diversionary tactic.
The main opposition party, he revealed, was not able to collate full results of the last general election because the supposed robust system brought in by the Director of IT appointed by Chairman Samuel Ofosu Ampofo crashed after collation of results from just five regions.
According to him, the petition was just a strategy to have the apex court compel the Electoral Commission (EC) to present the entire results that had been officially collated.
This revelation was contained in a tape that went gone viral on various WhatsApp platforms, in which the NDC general secretary was addressing party delegates for the impending conference slated for Saturday December 17, 2022 at the Accra Sports Stadium.
Manual collation
According to Asiedu Nketiah, in areas where the NDC did not even win, the worst case scenario was for a second round because, in his view, President Nana Akufo-Addo did not garner enough votes for an outright win.
However, he said the NDC did not have the proof at the time because the IT system had crashed.
“So when the NDC decided to challenge the results at the Supreme Court, we had to conduct manual collation of the results by calling for all the pink sheets from the various constituencies.
“Chairman Ampofo jumped on that too and insisted he will supervise the collation and went and brought some university students to sort out the pink sheets”, Mr. Asiedu Nketiah who is contesting for the position of NDC National Chairman with Mr. Ofosu Ampofo told party delegates in local dialect, Twi.
Indefensible collated results
The NDC general secretary also claimed that during the election petition when he was to take the witness stand, the results that the party Chairman submitted to him as proof of the party’s victory was not something any sensible person would tender in as evidence to a court.
“I’m one of the few people in Ghana well-versed with election matters so how could I take the witness box to defend the NDC with indefensible election figures. I could not do that.
“I told him the party could not submit that to court as evidence and he went to Lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata.
“He also perused the documents and arrived at the same conclusion and advised the NDC to find another lawyer if that was what they intend to submit as evidence at the Supreme Court”, Mr. Asiedu Nketiah revealed further.
Lawyer Tsikata, he said, however agreed the EC had violated many of the electoral laws, and in that case, the NDC could go to court on these violations and have the Supreme Court to compel the Commission to provide all the election results on its systems that will show the NDC won the elections.
“That was the reason why at the Supreme Court when they asked for the NDC’s results, I told them I had not brought any results because I don’t know how to lie,” he stated.
These, Mr. Asiedu Nketiah stated, are the reasons why he is vying for the NDC chairmanship.
Ofosu Ampofo holding NDC to ransom
Affectionately referred to as General Mosquito, the NDC scribe disclosed how Chairman Ofosu Ampofo held the party to ransom and threatened to resign if he was not given a free hand to personally appoint officers to man the 2020 elections.
According to Aseidu Nketiah, Chairman Ampofo submitted a list of persons he wanted appointed to various positions at a national executive meeting in anticipation of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary election.
However, former President John Dramani Mahama who was unable to attend the meeting sent Julius Debrah in his stead and pleaded for two appointments to be delayed until he was duly elected flagbearer of the NDC to enable him make an input into those to be appointed.
“It was a very simple matter for understanding but surprisingly Chairman Ampofo got infuriated and questioned if the former President was suggesting the party had no leader and had to wait for him (Mahama) to become leader before the appointments could be made).
“Everybody was shocked because we did not know whether he had a problem with Mahama or with Julius Debrah who was sent to relay the request of the former President.
“We did all we could to convince him to see reason in the request but he disagreed, which caused the meeting to split into an Ampofo faction and Mahama faction.
According to Mr. Asiedu Nketiah, Chairman Ampofo threatened to resign if he was not allowed to fill all the positions because he was the leader at the time.
The NDC, he said, was caught between the rock and the hard place because allowing the Chairman to resign had its own drawbacks and would not bode for the party’s welfare going into an election in a year or two.
“So he was allowed to make the appointments,” he said.
Serious misgivings
The NDC General Secretary disclosed that National Organizer Joshua Akamba even expressed serious misgivings about Chairman Ampofo’s choice for Director of IT Osei Kwame Griffith who he said was a close confidante to Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and warned against his appointment.
He stressed that Chairman Ofosu Ampofo’s appointment of Mr. Griffith and his so-called acclaimed robust system for the collation caused the NDC the 2020 election, which it could not even effectively challenge at the Supreme Court.
