Opinions of Sunday, 25 August 2013

Columnist: Jackson, Margaret

Eastern Region, Your Votes Are Safe With Akufo-Addo

By Margaret Jackson

August 19, 2013

Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP presidential candidate who still cannot shake himself from the defeat he suffered from President John Mahama, who campaigned for only three months in the 2012 Presidential Election, knows how to dribble people on the political turf.

Nana Akufo-Addo rushed to the Supreme Court (SC) with a litany of accusations notably over voting, unsigned pink sheets, unauthorised people voting abroad and voting without biometric verification among others.

He is therefore demanding that over 4 million votes of the 2012 Elections, which is touted as the most free and fair elections in the country, be thrown away in order for him to become the president of Ghana.

In court Akufo-Addo’s lawyers told Ghanaians that they simply want the electoral system in the country to be cleaned. But when the respondents read through the lines, they noted that the NPP has no intention of helping the country to clean the electoral system. The respondents noted that judging by the way the petitioners were making their pleadings; their sole purpose was to get some results overturned in order to pave the “smooth” way for Akufo-Addo to march on to the seat of government.

Even though the respondents gave some analysis to portray that Akufo-Addo was relying on bad faith by selecting polling stations mainly won by President Mahama to buttress their case, the NPP has pushed this allegation back by claiming that they did not act on bad faith.

But a cursory look into the polling station results by region; however enhances the claim by the respondents that Nana Akufo-Addo is solely involved in selective justice by concentrating mostly on strongholds of President Mahama.

Akufo-Addo won just two regions out of 10 during the presidential election in 2012. They are the Ashanti and of course the Eastern Regions. If we zoom to the Eastern Region, we see Akufo-Addo’s bad faith and selective justice dotted all over the place.

One of the regions with more than 30 constituencies is the Eastern Region. In fact, the region actually has 33 constituencies and a mammoth 3,034 polling stations. But Akufo-Addo did just a gentle touch to the Eastern Region because apart from hailing from that region, it is the second region apart from the Ashanti that he won during the presidential election.

Out of this gigantic number of polling stations, precisely 3,034, Akufo-Addo is contesting only 874 (28.8%) in court. And even in the stations that he wants results invalidated President Mahama won 768 (87.9%) while he won just 12.4%).

Akufo-Addo cunningly selected mostly all the polling stations that President Mahama won in the Eastern Region and took those stations to the Supreme Court (SC) leaving intact the stations that he won.

Akufo-Addo, who could not win the presidency through the ballot box wants as many as 286,278 voters in mostly NDC strongholds to lose their valid votes. He is relying on bogus claims that those voters voted without biometric verification, they were involved in over voting and they engaged in vote padding among others.

But unbelievably, Akufo-Addo has not been able to produce just one single voter in any of the 874 polling stations that he is contesting to support his bogus claims. Those who are bound to lose their valid votes must be very concerned because Akufo-Addo who was not there during voting time and was also not there during the counting and collation of the results, has grown a “Third Eye” which he is using to deceive his supporters that in spite of the fact that he trained and paid 52,000 individuals to man all the 26,002 polling stations, they all went to sleep and allowed somebody to steal the election from him.

At the polling stations under siege by Akufo-Addo, no one complained about over voting. We do not have any report either verbal or written about vote padding or any allegations concerning some people voting without biometric verification. We don’t have even just one report. But here we are, stuck with the phoney claims by Akufo-Addo.

I urge those in these affected polling stations who did not witness any irregularity to speak out as we get closer towards the determination of the petition case by the SC.

Ten constituencies that President Mahama garnered lots of votes from are on Akufo-Addo’s chopping board. The sore loser made sure that he selected all the polling stations in these constituencies which President Mahama won and loaded them with his unfounded allegations.

They are Yilo Krobo (32,573), Lower Manya Krobo (24,722), Upper West Akim (20,722), Afram Plains South (19,938), Upper Manya Krobo (17,3590, Nsawam Adoagyiri (13,461), Lower West Akim (13,316), Suhum (12,931), Afram Plains North (12,159) and New Juaben South (10,723).

These 10 constituencies alone will lose 177,247 votes if Akufo-Addo succeeds with his selective justice. And this huge number represents 61.9% of the total number of votes Akufo-Addo wants to steal from voters in the Eastern Region who did not vote for him.

This is the mark of a desperate desperado who is looking for every means to win the presidency at all cost. He simply does not care about you, but only his self-seeking ego.

magjackson80@yahoo.com

http://majjacks80.blogspot.com