A former Minister for National Security, Mr Totobi Quakyi has criticized the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) for responding inappropriately to some observations made by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) after the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election.
In an open letter to President Akufo-Addo, Totobi Quakyi said: “the indignation of your appointed Electoral Commissioner (sic) about the seriousness of the situation only serves to stoke the embers that we must hastily put out.
"The conceitedness of her response evidences an astonishing degree of political immaturity, and her attempt to discredit the observations and valid concerns of the independent observers is truly unfortunate, unconscionable and unwise.”
CODEO after the by-election, indicated that the presence of armed security officials intimidated voters at the various polling stations.
According to the group of independent and non-partisan network of civil society groups, faith-based organizations and professional bodies, some polling stations had separate security teams from the Police, the Immigration Service and National Security.
Apart from that some polling stations also had mobile patrol teams of security personnel “sometimes at short intervals of less than thirty minutes. Even more worrying was the presence of masked security operatives at polling stations, who could not easily be identified and thus could not be held accountable for any misconduct”.
“At the Prisons JHS at Roman Ridge, for instance, security operatives who claimed to be National Security operatives positioned themselves next to polling officials and when a stationed uniformed police officer alerted them to move away from poll officials, a pick-up full of many more of the so-called security operatives descended on the police officer and attacked him for doing legitimate work,” they added.
Even though CODEO did not accuse Madam Jean Mensa of causing the intimidation, she condemned their observation saying: “on the allegation of the shooting incident at the La-Bawaleshie area, the Commission rejects the attempts by the report of CODEO to link the Electoral Commission to the alleged incident at the private residence of the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC)."
“The Commission wishes to state that the said shooting incident did not take place in any of the polling stations in the Constituency, and, therefore, did not, in any way, disrupt the conduct of the overall poll. In this respect, the Commission strongly dissociates itself from the alleged acts of violence that occurred at the La-Bawaleshie area,” she added.
Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]
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Where has Totobi Quakyi been all this while when some of his members were using a lot of impolite language on respectable people? At times one thinks the NDC has very astute politicians but they are all the same indisciplined individuals who have no shred of shame or decency.
Another s-t-u-p*id motherf*cker who has never done a days decent work in his entire miserable life.These are the maggots who have leeched on mother Ghana for an entire lifetime From the time of that bogus revolution to date. Let this man tell us how he has contributed to the well being of the Ghanaian.
Mr. Totobi Quakyi 's attack on the EC is uncalled for, misplaced smacks of rather an immaturity. Then, the violence did not take place at any of the polling stations. The ballot boxes were well policed and there were no mishaps at the polling stations and for the EC the By-Election was successful. And the police needed to be praised for the good job done and the EC did exactly that, devoid of any Party-politics and bias. This desperate attacks and uninformed critique on the EC must stop. You can look everywhere and you hardly find any reasonable NDC member whether young with sharp teeth or old with no teeth, who speaks intellectually and dispassionately to national issues of interest without defamation of innocent personalities. If there were security lapses somewhere in the constituency which did not affect the process of the election, what has that got to do with the EC? Let alone to blame it on the EC and Mr. Totobi Quakyi had been an Interior Minister before. Yet has totally lost his reasons.
MR TOTOBI IF YOU DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO PLEASE LEAVE OUR PRESIDENT ALONE .I PERSONALLY DONT THINK THIS LETTER OF YOURS WILL GET TO THE PRESIDENT. AND IF IT DOES I ADVISE OUR PRESIDENT NOT TO READ IT .WHAT DO YOU WANT TO TELL GHANAIANS WHAT HAS THE SHOOTINGS GOT TO DO WITH MRS JEAN MENSAH? DID THE SHOOTINGS HAPPENED AT THE POOLING STATION?COMPARE THE FORMER EC CHAIR PERSON TO MRS JEAN MENSAH YOU WILL SEE THE DIFFERENCE.
She should do her worse because she will be removed the same way as her predecessor.
Mr hypocrite,you need new spectacles to see things clearly. Ghanaians should not blame you,because you joined the then PNDC with charlie wote,T-shirt and a pair of jeans, now you command millions.Some of us have not forgotten Herty stores, your mansions in prime areas.You came as pauper and left the political scene as fabulously rich man.Shame on you and your son who pocketed $6 million meant for the personnel of EC to rig the election.He purchased two mansions and paid cash.You came,loot and enriched yourself and your family.Find some place to hide your disgrace.Tell Ghanaians and the international world what happened at Akwatia,Chereponi,Talensi,Atiwa,Amenfi West and Asutifi South.Hypocrite in the highest order.
Very infantile indeed! She has not learned any lessons from the inexperience of Charlotte Osei.
WHO CARES