The 2020 Campaign team of former President John Mahama has said the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) must not blame the flag bearer of the biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), for the sins of ethnic bigotry of President Nana Akufo-Addo and his party.

“We have taken note of an orchestrated attempt by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its General Secretary to demonise former President John Dramani Mahama, after the latter had urged the government to back down from its ethnic bigotry and voter suppression agenda in the just-ended registration of voters”, a statement signed by campaign spokesperson James Agyenim-Boateng said.

“It is important to remind the NPP General Secretary, and the drafters of his statement, which he presented at a press conference on Monday that, Mr Mahama, as leader and flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), cannot be blamed for the sins of the NPP and the government during the registration of voters, especially in the strongholds of the NDC”, the campaign team added.

According to the statement, “Indeed, Mr Mahama, as a president who handed over a peaceful and united country, owes it a duty to call the government out for its divisive and ethnic bigotry in the run-up to, and during, the voter registration exercise”, adding: “It is trite knowledge, and video evidence abound on social media, that heavily-armed uniformed personnel and, in some cases, NPP thugs operating under the cover of National Security, were deployed by the government to harass and intimidate eligible voters in the strongholds of the NDC, including the Volta and Oti Regions, as part of a grand agenda to disenfranchise the people and thereby suppress votes in those areas”.

The Mahama campaign team said in some cases, “eligible Ghanaians were physically removed from registration queues and prevented from registering simply because security personnel and political actors who are not vested with powers to determine Ghanaian citizenship pronounced them non-Ghanaians”.

There are also “many reports of people who were denied their right to register simply because they could not speak a particular language. We have also received reports of deliberate frustrations and impediments that were put in the way of settler communities, particularly in NPP strongholds, throughout the country to ensure that not many of them could get their names on the new voter register”, the Mahama team said.

“The shameful and unfortunate conduct in Banda where armed military personnel were deployed to block a road, intimidate and physically stop some people from going to a registration centre is an issue that we have not forgotten”, the statement recalled.

While “saluting the resilience of many eligible voters for defying the odds and registering in the just-ended exercise”, the Mahama team also said: “It is important to remind the government and the NPP that the state-sponsored harassment, violence and intimidation in a simple exercise of registering voters was needless and will not be countenanced the next time by the members and supporters of our party”.

It continued: “While our people may have endured these undemocratic acts during the voter registration, we call on the government and the NPP, in the interest of the peace and stability of our country, to back down from acts that deliberately raise the political temperature”.

“We also wish to remind the NPP and make President Akufo-Addo aware – since he is usually not aware of happenings in his own government or so he says about many happenings – that the undignified case of Minister Mavis Hawa Koomson firing gunshots at eligible voters at a registration centre in her constituency is one that is still present on our minds.

“It is also important to make the point that the deafening silence of the President about that shooting incident does not just speak volumes on his stance on electoral violence and intimidation, but it is also a sordid reminder that not much has changed on the part of the NPP and President Akufo-Addo, even after the shameful state-sponsored violence in the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election”, the statement noted.

Read the full statement below: