Media personality, Paul Adom Otchere has questioned the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) preparedness ahead of its demand for a forensic audit of the electoral roll.
According to him, the NDC and its executives did not do its diligence and as such cannot lay blame at the doorsteps of its Director of Elections, Dr. Omane Boamah.
According to the media personality, it was quiet sad Dr. Omane Boamah was unable to justify the need for the forensic audit at the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC).
“Omane Boamah is the Director of IT and he says he identified something in the electoral role which may affect the party in the 2024 elections. My question is if I am a political party or a member of a political party at the top level and one of us has found something, don’t we sit down in a room and interrogate what he has fond by ourselves before going to IPAC? So, that when we go to IPAC that presentation of what is wrong with the document (is done by any of the top executives). (Why) couldn’t (the presentation) be done by any of the top executives, either Fiifi Kweetey, Asiedu Nketiah or Sammy Gaymfi,” he asked.
Paul Adom Otchere argued that Dr. Omane Boamah worked for the aforementioned people and he expects them to have interrogated him once he alerted them on an issue.
He cited the 2013 election petition of the New Patriotic Party as a clear example of interrogation and verification.
The television host revealed that then candidate Akufo-Addo thoroughly interrogated persons who presented evidence or electoral discrepancies at the polls, and double checked these claims, even informing former President John Agyekum Kufuor before going to court with the election petition.
“Apparently that didn’t happen in the NDC. So, when Omane Boamah said so and so, they were in a hurry to go to the streets because Omane Boamah said it and they believed him,” he added.
Paul argues the blame lays at the doorsteps of the party hierarchy for not thoroughly vetting the information presented by Dr. Omane Boamah, leading to the NDC’s disgrace.
After months of calls for a forensic audit of the voters register and a nationwide demonstration to back their call, the NDC after an IPAC meeting released a statement and the reason for the agitation was not mentioned.
President Akufo-Addo in a recent interview with France 24 also indicated that there was little substance in the NDC’s call for a forensic audit of the voters register.
The NDC has questioned the credibility of the voter register following the detection of several discrepancies, including an alleged illegal vote transfers during the vote transfer exercise organized in August by the Electoral Commission as part of their constitutional electoral mandate.