You are here: HomeOpinionsArticles2017 07 11Article 557484

Opinions of Tuesday, 11 July 2017

Columnist: Rockson Adofo

Did IT failure cause NDC’s defeat in Election 2016?

NDC suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2016 election NDC suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2016 election

Ghanaians seem to be informed of why and how the NDC lost Election 2016 in a section of Professor Kwesi Botchwey’s secret report on investigations conducted into NDC’s woeful performance in the election. According to the report which their leaders are currently holding very tightly to their chest, without letting the contents filter into the public domain, it is averred that the NDC lost the election due to IT failure at the headquarters of the Electoral Commission. This is very interesting!

How could the breakdown of the IT machines at a critical time in collating election results culminate in only NDC’s defeat as they are shamelessly alleging? Were the machines set up for the entire election processes of which any unexpected glitch did affect all the participating political parties and stakeholders or they were set up to guarantee NDC’s success? I want a clarification on the posed question because the fact NDC are attributing their defeat to the glitch the IT systems suffered baffles me greatly and does not make any bit of sense to me.

For the entire conclusion I can draw, the NDC headed by then President John Dramani Mahama was in total secret agreement and arrangement with the Chair of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, to rig the election in favour of the NDC. This secret arrangement made the President and some NDC members go out in puffed-chests vaingloriously claiming to have won the election long before the Election Day came, or the election was held, on Wednesday, 7 December 2016.

President Mahama was doing “Husain Bolt” on political platforms signalling that he had won the election already. He had absolute confidence in Mrs Charlotte Osei and other corrupt staff members at the Electoral Commission to ensure the NDC win the election at all costs regardless of their marked failures, incompetence, stinking corrupt practices, thievery and total disrespect for the Ghanaian citizens.

As man proposes, God disposes, so a well-known saying goes. As they were relying heavily on their plotted rigging capability, dishing out stolen State’s money to those attending their rallies, spree-buying individual’s voting cards and splashing luxury cars to traditional chiefs to court their support, the NPP were begging the electorates for their votes, pleading with them to try them by voting them to power. The NPP were campaigning actively as well as asking God to take control of the battle hence their election maxim, “The battle is the Lord’s”

Were the NDC and President Mahama not mocking Nana Akufo Addo for begging Ghanaians to elect him the President of Ghana? Did President cum Presidential-candidate John Mahama not say he would never beg for votes hence teasing Nana Akufo Addo? Why did he do that? It was all because he was all the while trusting the efficacy of his collusion with Mrs Charlotte Osei and their secretly-installed IT equipment to doctor the polling results, thus, the figures, in favour of the NDC same as allegedly happened in 2012 elections.

In 2012 election, it was alleged that the Electoral Commission (EC) colluded with NDC to hire an Israeli Company, Superlock Technologies Limited (STL), to transmit election results whereupon the results were doctored in favour of NDC. In the absence of STL in 2016 election, the EC had probably colluded with NDC to have some election-results-transmitting equipment installed somewhere to doctor the figures in favour of the NDC before the results reached the EC’s head office for same to be announced to the nation.

Why did Mrs Charlotte Osei warn the media not to announce any election results from any polling station, district or regional collation centres but only those coming from the EC as would be announced by her? This is the question Ghanaians are invited to answer. Anyway, the media defied her order come the Election Day. She could not gag them as she had intended.

People are privy to certain secrets and it is just a matter of time for all to be disclosed to the public. Did the NDC not install any machines in secret places to help with the rigging of the election as might have been agreed with the EC? Did those machines work or not and if so, why did they malfunction at such a critical time that they needed them to rig the election to deny Ghanaians their true leaders as they might have voted for?

As said in one of my recently published articles, it is not a crime to take harmless counter-measures to negate a plot to cause a crime. As far as I may believe, the NPP did not rig Election 2016 nor took illegal means to deny the nation and the electorates the true election results as they might have voted for. However, they might have resorted to a non-criminal method to guarantee the nation the true results of the election. Is this a crime? NO!!!

In future, the true extent of any measures taken by both NDC and NPP to rig the election and to ensure fair results respectively, will be known and/or published. People are sitting on secret information that will surely out one day in the future if not sooner.

The NDC chickens are coming home to roost. They are themselves admitting the fact they had intended to rig Election 2016 but thanks to IT failure at the EC, they lost the election massively miserably. Next time, they will not rely on plots to attempt to deny Ghanaians fair election results.

Nobody should believe that anyone from NPP hacked the EC’s computers on the Election Day. Any such allegations of one Joseph Anokye, a NASA computer analyst/scientist hacking the EC’s computer as were being peddled in Ghana in the wake of NPP’s massive win of election 2016 were all fabrications or figment of the peddlers’ imagination.

All that I can tell is God gave wisdom to some people at a critical time to devise a means to ensure the NDC did not rig the election to deny Ghanaians the very persons they had genuinely voted for to lead them from the situation of suffering to a situation of joy.

Am I not vindicated for constantly bashing Mrs Charlotte Osei for plotting to rig the election for NDC? When one reads the full content of a publication on both Ghanaweb and Modernghana under their General News of Saturday, 8 July 2017 titled, “IT failure killed NDC rigging plan – Report” (https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/IT-failure-killed-NDC-rigging-plan-Report-556672), one will be convinced that something fishy had been planned by NDC in collusion with the EC.

I pray this publication becomes my last on Ghana’s politics on the internet for many more months to come. I have to attend to other matters of personal importance that will surely consume all my pleasure hours and attention hence the obligation to quit all internet politics for some time. I shall from time to time publish to update the public on the ongoing Kumawu chieftaincy dispute.

I hope His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the President of Ghana, will stamp his authority to nip the unfolding damaging wrangling and alleged corruption within his government in the bud. Additionally, he must check to resolve the issues relating to Hon. Kennedy Agyapong for it is said, “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you” and “one good turn deserves another”. I know the invaluable work God has done through Hon. Kennedy Agyapong to bring NPP and Nana Akufo Addo to power. Anyone who wants to live in denial can dispute my assertion but I believe it to be the truth.

NDC lost the election because God wanted a change for the better for Ghanaians. The corruption and disrespect for the electorates by NDC and President Mahama were too much for Ghanaians to tolerate. The underlying failure for NDC to win the election was not their inability to collate election results but their brazen propensity to steal public money with unrepentant callous heart that annoyed God and the Ghanaian citizenry.

I wish my fans and the public good bye until many months’ time. I will stay in touch on Facebook and may come back with a published advice to His Excellency the President, my reminiscent biblical Joseph, Moses or David. I have the obligation to ensure he succeeds to the admiration and expectation of Ghanaians for reasons already spelt out in my previous publications as his constructive critic.