Unmask EC or shut up

On Wednesday, December 30, 2020, former President John Dramani Mahama told Ghanaians that he “and other people who have expressed reservations with the results declared by the Electoral Commission (EC)” are being impressed upon “to let go in the interest of peace”.

I am glad he stood his ground. I am not anti-peace, but I don’t agree that Mahama should concede merely because (to quote him) “we are being reminded that Ghanaians are a peace-loving people”.

Having said this, however, I don’t think it is true that any Ghanaian has told the former President to let go “in the interest of peace”. What I’ve heard, so far, are pleas to him and the NDC to “go to court” in the interest of peace. 

What is NDC’s case in court? In pidgin English, John Mahama told Voice of America (VOA) radio that “plenty evidence dey to show say John Dramani Mahama win de election”.

Former Defence Minister, Benjamin Kunbuor, says the 2020 general election “witnessed manipulations as never before in Ghana”. The NDC flagbearer, JDM, says Jean Mensa is the most incompetent in Ghanaian election history.

As you read this article, there are NDC supporters who believe that the EC chair or someone acting on her behalf manipulated figures to put Akufo-Addo in front. True?

That is why Mahama should ignore calls to let go. We need full trial to unmask enemies of Ghana’s democracy, especially in a country where people are stoned to death because a man shouted that his genitals vanished when somebody touched him. In all such cases, no amount of pleas, tears and vows of innocence have ever saved the victim from lynching.

Someone once said that the only way to prove white is to place black beside it.  I think the court is the best and only way to put black by white to save (or restore) the integrity of Ghanaian elections.

It is unhelpful, indeed, very disturbing and most unfortunate that even before the court could begin sitting, social media has been awash these past few days with snide remarks suggesting that the judges of the Supreme Court cannot be trusted to be fair.

Humanity

This is an attack on our very humanity. If we cannot trust our judges, EC, IGP, the military, the Peace Council, Chief Imam’s spokesperson et al, on what else and on whom can we fall to resolve our disputes, seeing as disputes are inevitable even among twins?

It may be (and it’s) true that some judges are corrupt, but judges, on the whole, are not frightened by or cowered by street demonstration into decisions, rulings or judgments.

Thank God for the decision to do live telecast of the proceedings. I cannot wait to hear how Ashanti Region figures were “bloated by 300,000 votes” and how NDC’s 140 parliamentary seats, as declared by Mahama, Otokunor and Asiedu Nketsia, shrank to 137.

For too long Ghanaians have prayed for but have not been privileged to hear or see details of how EC chairpersons steal elections for their choice candidates. This year, the six million NDC supporters are anxious. They cannot wait to shout, “We told you so!”

 But I dare say that the EC has a case to answer. Is it true or false that results in Techiman South were not collated? If it is true that ballot papers were printed for Santrokofi, Akpafu, Likpe and Lolobi (SALL), what was the reason behind the 11th hour decision by the EC not to hold parliamentary elections in those areas?

I have picked on these two cases because Franklin Cudjoe and Samson Lardy Ayenini who made the above allegations are among the most credible advocates in our democracy (at least, to me).

Public information

If the EC values public information so much as to set days aside to “Let the Citizen Know”, in the run up to December 7, it should be even quicker now with facts on the above than it has done thus far.

A few weeks before the general election, all Ghanaians saw Jean Mensa praying at a meeting of heads of churches. We all heard her quote scripture at her press conference. Should Ghanaians believe in the piety of her prayers and bible quotations? Or are we, in the coming days, going to see her prove William Shakespeare right when he wrote in The Merchant of Venice that The devil can cite scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with smiling cheek?

Poor Jean! She has been described in words enough to keep her nailed to the cross for ever, but the process is a necessary one: a crooked and incompetent EC leadership must be exposed — that is, if criminal manipulations did contribute to the general election’s outcome.