NPP recruited illiterates as polling agents – Lawyer Amaliba

A member of the NDC’s legal team, Abraham Amaliba, has charged political parties in the country to learn lessons from the ongoing Supreme Court case, which he believes, can be narrowed down to the mistakes committed by polling agents who could neither read nor write.

According to Lawyer Amaliba, if a well-organised party like the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had concentrated on recruiting competent and literate hands, they would not have sent a petition to the Supreme Court seeking to challenge the declaration of President Mahama by the Electoral Commission (EC).

He pointed out that the era of recruiting “family members only” and “cronies” to act as polling agents for political parties is over, adding that the recruitment of such persons should be based on competency.

“In this trial, we have been made aware that most of the presiding members and the agents from the various political parties were incompetent. Lots of them are to be blamed for the problems that have come up. They had difficulties filling the portion for entrants".

“The NPP just handpicked family members and cronies who could not write anything and these were the same people they presented as presiding members and polling agents. “If you look at the pink sheets, instead of writing figures at the column for a number of ballots issued, they write it at the column for the number of votes cast,” he said.