The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has stated that his party will take matters into its own hands to ensure that all avenues for rigging in the upcoming 2024 general election are blocked.

Speaking at a campaign event in the Northern Region on Friday, November 2, 2024, former President Mahama alleged that excess ballot papers printed for the 2020 polls were given to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and some of these papers found their way to polling stations during the election.

He claimed that the NDC caught several NPP agents with these excess ballot papers, which were supposed to have been destroyed by the printing house. When the issue was reported to the Ghana Police Service, nothing happened to the perpetrators or those behind the scheme.

“This election, we are going to make sure that it is transparent and safe. In the past, we have always trusted that everybody who is a stakeholder would behave in a neutral and non-partisan manner. But it does not always work.

“In 2020, when we went to supervise the printing of ballot papers, after we had finished printing them, we signed them, and our agents left the printing presses. What happened? They started printing ballot papers again. Some of those ballot papers found their way into the hands of the NPP party. On election day, we caught NPP agents with ballot papers in their hands; we reported them to the police, but nothing happened to them," he said.

He added, “Just yesterday, one of our election supervisors went to inspect one of the printing houses, and an NPP person came there and attempted to assault him. We know that when they print excess ballot papers, instead of shredding them in front of the agents, they keep them and hand them over to the NPP. We are not going to allow that this year. Nobody is going to get hold of any extra papers to dump into any ballot box. This year, we are all going to be vigilant.”

BAI/OGB

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Meanwhile, catch up on the latest Election Desk on GhanaWeb TV interview as Patricia Rockson Hammond sits down with Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Kumankumah, Flagbearer of the CPP, below: