The Northern Regional Treasurer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Tanko Rashid insists the New Patriotic Party (NPP) did not win the December 7, 2016 on merit.

He disclosed on Tamale-based Diamond Fm that the 2016 election was historic and the suffering executives went through was just unbearable revealing that the NDC literally gifted the NPP the election victory.

“We won in 1992, 1996, 2008, and 2012 because we know the strategies we used to win the polls which till date is surprising to the NPP themselves. But what I can tell you is that we handed power to the NPP which they know”, he stated.

According to Dean of NDC Regional Election Officers said the continuous change in strategies and directives and counter directives form those in authority all affected the smooth implementations of strategies which worked against the party.

“We went to Dodowa on a three-day seminar and educated ourselves on the strategy to be adopted but we were greeted with a new strategy prior to the election and some of us were surprise. We had prepared ourselves in anticipation to begin the implementation but that was never to be because some persons who were not involved were now the persons assigned such roles.

If we had implemented the strategies NPP had no way of winning the polls. That is how come they are behaving the way they are doing. Till date they are still struggling to unearth our election winning machinery. Someone within ND gave them the hint in 2012 that is how come they went to court but the person did not have full grasp of the strategy so they failed to prove themselves”, he said.

He said when this started happening, it obvious the game was up for the NDC citing instances were reports were sent to the party’s headquarters but nothing was done by those in authority to mitigate the effect.

“I worked closely with the National Security Offices and conducted a report which was not looking too good for our party. Initially, we sent it to Accra and when the Vice President visited again in Tamale we gave him another report but that was it”, he disclosed on Tamale-based Diamond Fm.

According to him a final report on November 30, 2016 clearly indicated that the party was losing the polls not because some persons stood as independent candidates but other bigger issues that bedeviled the party prior to the polls emerged.

“We had major issues than the proliferation of independent candidates in this region. The signals were clear we had lost the polls because almost all the strategies we adopted seemed not to be working. It was like a vehicle that had failed brakes and moving without a particular direction. That was how the situation looked like”, he revealed.

On why executives of the party failed to tell the grassroots the truth about the party’s impending defeat he said “we did not want people to die out of shock. Some members could have died so we needed to give them false hopes in anticipation that a miracle could happen because with God all things are possible. But that was never to be”, he added.

He described the 2016 election as one of the most difficult polls for the party indicating that he personally has never seen that kind of election in the country describing the suffering as too much to bear.