On the 3rd of April 2017, the Chatham House London published on its website its nominees for 2017 Chatham House Prize, to be awarded by the Royal Institute of International Affairs of the U.K, of which the winner will be announced later this year, and an award ceremony to take place in the autumn.

To the surprise of many Ghanaians, especially CENAB UK Advocacy group, the name Charlotte Osei, Chairperson of Ghana's Electoral Commission (EC) was included in the list of nominees. This is because her outfit purportedly ensured peaceful and transparent electoral process in the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, and also for consolidating further, Ghana's 24 - years old democratic journey.

However, CENAB UK, a UK-based Ghanaian advocacy group believes that the reasons cited by the London Chatham House to include Mrs. Charlotte Osei, who will receive the 2017 Prestigious Award if she wins amongst other nominees, is flawed. We contend this for various tangible reasons as far as the 2016 general election is concerned.

As one of the well respected Prestigious awards in the world, the Chatham House Prize is mostly awarded to a person, persons or an organization that is deemed to have made the most significant contributions to the improvement of international relations in the previous year. It will be a big misplaced and controversial decision to consider Mrs. Osei to receive such an award amongst well deserving nominees such as Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia, for formally ratifying a peace agreement with the FARC rebel group and bringing an end to the war in Colombia, and Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATO, for steering NATO through one of the most complicated periods in its recent history.

Before Charlotte Osei took over from her predecessor, Dr Afari-Gyan, the former Ghana EC Chairman, Ghana had conducted a number of peaceful and transparent elections to the appreciation and admiration of the world, and had made tremendous significant improvements on its electoral processes since December 2000.

Coming towards the December 2016 general elections, though very important reformative decisions were taken by the EC that improved on the general transparency, fairness and enhancement on the peaceful elections in Ghana, on record, none of these important reformative ideas leading to decisions to improve the process was candidly initiated by Mrs. Charlotte Osei or by the institution of the Electoral Commission itself.

All instances of reformative ideas and suggestions leading to these great significant improvements on the Electoral process were initiated by individual Ghanaian citizens and the Opposition Parties, most of which the EC overtly contested against.

Furthermore, in all cases, reformative decisions that were finally taken by the EC were foisted on the Commission by the Supreme Court of Ghana, and with compelling reasons for the EC to implement them.

Mrs. Charlotte Osei's infrangible posture started earlier before the elections, when she vowed not to allow any significant reforms to take place in the electoral process for the 2016 elections. This was in spite of all the good reformative suggestions made by the Supreme Court, the Civil Society Organisations, the opposition Political Parties and Christian organisations in Ghana.

At one stage, the EC was described by some opinion leaders as having lost focus on her mandate to ensure a peaceful and transparent elections, and was likely, if care was not taken, to plunge Ghana into chaos due to their stance, as political tension was considerably raising.

In some instances when the Supreme Court of Ghana had passed judgements on a case against the EC, urging them to take further steps to ensure free, fair and transparent elections, the EC Chairperson, Mrs. Charlotte Osei would deliberately flout such unambiguous orders by the Supreme Court.

Having deliberately caused frustration on the Supreme Court, Justice S. Gbadegbe, one of the Supreme Court Justices at an open court sitting, descended heavily on the Electoral Commission (EC), vowing not to allow it to plunge the country into chaos as the December 2016 general election was reaching home stretch.

Justice Gbadegbe is on record to have openly stated, “the justices would not sit aloof, make pronouncements and watch the EC, headed by Mrs. Charlotte Osei, to flout their orders."

Mrs. Charlotte Osei’s obstinate posture not to allow for a transparent process before the elections, led to some Ghanaian citizens registering their displeasure through peaceful demonstrations. One of such peaceful demonstrations turned into violence when the Police visited brutal attacks on ordinary Ghanaian demonstrators, most especially on women who took part in the demonstration. In the process, one gentleman lost one of his eyes as a result of fired rubber bullets by the police. There is pictorial evidence available on the internet and on all the social media.

Finally, an instance of failed EC website and their failure on electronic and social media updates after the poll had closed, through out the 48 hours before the final results were declared, the Commission festered unnecessary false rumours about the delayed results which again increased the avoidable tension mounted in the country, a situation that was saved from being escalated by the congratulatory message sent by Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, one of the Presidential contestants, and followed by others from the diplomatic missions in Ghana.

With all these few instances and details available, we do not believe it will make good prudential judgment to award Mrs. Charlotte Osei with such a world class prize for only supervising, but without any proactive input as commissioner, in the recent Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Ghana. We think she is undeserving of this prize and entreat the management at Chatham House to reconsider their decision.