MyNewsGh.com has obtained an account of the incident from both Member of Parliament for Tema East Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah and Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu regarding the snatching of the ballot by the former during the election of the speaker of parliament.
Many Ghanaians after watching various footage have pinpointed Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu as the mastermind of the saga as Carlos Ahenkorah was seen allegedly taking instructions from his leader before making a dash for the ballots.
First, according to this is the account of the Majority Leader, who denies any collusion in the act.
“I called Annor Dompreh [whip] that because of the initial observation I made… I said he should come and stand there while they were counting to ensure that every single one of the ballots would have been ticked for Bagbin or otherwise or if there were any problem then he would raise the issue.
He added:
“So, I was asking Annoh Dompreh to move from his place to come and be at where they were doing the counting for Bagbin… just when I was calling him Carlos Ahenkorah approached me and his statement was that… “do we just sit down and allow the NDC to win the speakership, and I asked him, where is this coming from… and in any event what is it that you want to do, please get away from here? So, I was even shouting at him to get away from me… I don’t know what happened,” Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu narrated.
“Just when the superintendent was leaving me, I saw him run, snatch the ballot and attempted to bolt away with it… he was overpowered by our officials from the Marshall’s department…” he explained.
On his part, Carlos Ahenkorah corroborated some parts of the Majority Leader’s account.
“People are saying he instructed me to do it but let me say it on record, my leader did not ask me to do it. I take full responsibility for my actions. I told him to act and he said I should wait for a little.” He said in an interview.
“Then I asked him why I should wait, at least you are our leader, you know the standing orders, you can quote some law for proceedings to be halted. But he insisted I should be patient. So, I told him I can’t be patient any longer so I had to snatch the ballot papers. Because if they are unable to complete the counting that will mean there will not be any numbers for them to stand on,” he explained.