EC boss Mahama's 'worst' appointment - Hassan Ayariga

The appointment of Mrs Charlotte Osei is the most grievous blunder committed in the country’s history and Ghana should be ready for the consequences if she presides over the 2016 elections, All People’s Congress (APC) flag bearer Hassan Ayariga has said.

“Madam Charlotte Osei, with all due respect to whoever appointed her, was the worst mistake Ghana has ever done in our history,” Dr Ayariga said at a press conference in Accra on Friday, November 11.

According to him, the EC boss must resign because to him, she is not “qualified and not credible”.

He added that with Mrs Osei as chair of the election-conducting body, “the institution is no more credible, not free and not fair to supervise the 2016 elections”.

He further accused the EC boss of disqualifying him from participating in the 2016 presidential race on personal grounds, instead of technicalities or administrative errors.

“The EC did not say they were not going to accept [my candidature]. Madam Charlotte Osei said she [was] not going to accept my candidature and she [was] doing this on personal grounds,” Mr Ayariga told Prince Minkah on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Thursday November 10.

According to him, Mrs Osei said in a recent speech at Chatham House in the UK that “there was going to be one winner and many losers including Hassan Ayariga, I’m sure”, in this year’s elections.

Mr Ayariga rained abuses on the EC Chair a few weeks ago when he was first disqualified from the presidential race over some errors.

The APC’s flag bearer was one of 13 nominees disqualified for various anomalies. At the time of Mr Ayariga’s disqualification, the EC identified two errors on his forms but following a ruling by the Supreme Court that all the disqualified nominees be given the opportunity to make amends, the election management body said it subsequently detected 93 new errors.

The EC asked him to correct all those errors by the Tuesday 9 November 5pm deadline given by the Supreme Court.

Although Mr Ayariga resubmitted the corrected nomination forms before the deadline, his candidature was rejected by the EC for the second time, ruling him out of the December polls. The nominations of seven other aspirants were also rejected for the second time.

Earlier, the APC’s General Secretary, Razak Kojo Opoku, had accused the EC of using “ambush tactics” to kick the party out of the race.