NDC To Set Up Presidential Electoral Taskforce To Protect Presidential Votes In All The Constituencies–Mahama Declares To Volta Regional House Of Chiefs
Former President Dramani Mahama made these remarks when he met the Volta Regional House of Chiefs in Ho on Friday January 12, 2024 as part of his two-day tour of the Volta Region to engage broadly with diverse groups in shaping Ghana's future.
Freeman Koryekpor 
FLAGBEARER of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Former President John
Dramani Mahama has revealed preparation and commitment of the party to set up the effective Presidential Electoral Security Taskforce, ostensibly to protect presidential votes in all the constituencies during the December 7, 2024 general elections.
According to former President, they had learned their lessons from the previous general elections for which they have realized that the inability of proper protection of the voting ballots of the presidential votes had given advantage to the EC to connive with the officials of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and succeeded in stealing presidential votes of the NDC to declare in favour of the NPP to win the political power.
Former President Dramani Mahama made these remarks when he met the Volta Regional House of Chiefs in Ho on Friday January 12, 2024 as part of his two-day tour of the Volta Region to engage broadly with diverse groups in shaping Ghana's future.
During this tour, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate will engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including party representatives, traditional leaders, religious leaders, labour unions, farmers, fishermen, artisans, students, lecturers/teachers, and assembly members.
This initiative is aimed at fostering an inclusive dialogue to better understand the concerns, aspirations, and innovative ideas of the people, which will inform and shape the NDC's 2024 manifesto.
Answering questions in the meeting of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, NDC flagbearer outlined his vision to the chiefs and called on them to tell their people in their traditional areas to vote massively for him to win the upcoming Presidential election to build Ghana we want.
According to him, the pockets of the
evidence clearly show that the current EC administration taught the NDC a bitter lesson that "we must tightening our own internal electoral proceses on how we should be vigilant in the electoral election in Ghana."
"But l can tell you [referring to the chiefs of Volta Region] that our people are firing up and ever ready and l would like assure that they aren't going to sleep again. We in the NDC even wish to recommend to the EC that the votes of the Presidential election in the December 7, 2024 should be counted first, before the parliamentary votes," Mr Mahama told the chiefs.
He said because the parliamentary votes is constituency specific, everybody would go and sleep after the declaration of the winners, thereby waiting for the presidential results.
He assured the chiefs that the NDC is going to have presidential election taskforce in all the 275 constituencies in Ghana and that the taskforce is going to be responsible for presidential election to make sure that the presidential votes were also protected.
"We know the parliamentarian is there would look after himself, but the President is not in every constituencies and we normally depend on the party executives and parliamentarian to safeguard the interest of the Presidential candidate.
"And now we are going to have effective team of electoral monitoring taskforce in that election day to make sure the presidential votes are protected and no stealing would take place," he noted.
He said that in many electoral systems, "you can relaxed knowing that the EC is a neutral habitant, saying that in the past years, the EC of Ghana EC is a neutral habitant.
He added that he remembered that under the administration former Chairman of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, recruitment into the EC of Ghana was transparent and opened.
He noted that although it might be some few lapses but they didn't find deliberate manipulation of the electoral systems in the country by the electoral officers themselves to try to forge certain outcome of the electoral results.
Fortunately, former President pointed out that in these days, the manipulation of the electoral systems by the electoral officers themselves exist in the country.
He expressed worry over the development, saying that in times that they have trusted the EC would do its electoral administration jobs, we have found that we actually open ourselves to defeat."
"So now like Azumah Nelson said we are going into the ring with our own referee, and he was asked which referee was that; he said it is a block and that he punched so hard which will knocked you down so that no referee can cheat him and say no he draws or he beats you. So we in the NDC are going to leave no stone unturned.
"The 2020 was particularly difficult year because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) so l wouldn't put all the blames on our executives. You remembered that from March to August, there are restrictions on movements and gatherings. And you couldn't gather 15 or 20 people in one place and even funerals were postponed because of the wake of the world deadly Coronavirus.
"So in the 2020, we not have the space to select proper and trained our party angets and most our party agents went to sit at the electoral polling stations for us received just one way of training but ideally you must do three ways of training for the party's agents before the election day.
"So maybe it was destined that we should loss the election in the 2020. So when l look back l am thankful to God that we have lost the election. Because all these debts exchange like me giving the head cut to pensioners and all those people.
"Because the NPP government under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo/ Bawumia was successfully hinding the truth state of the economy to themselves by giving free light and water to Ghanaians during the COVID-19 era and everybody thought that everything was okay under NPP administration," Mr Dramani Mahama noted.
He indicated that being the Former President of the Republic of Ghana, "l knew for sure that there is a big hole in the country's economy but most of Ghanaians didn't know."
He maintained that "if we should have won and come to the office in the year 2021, the NPP officials are very good in spinning to have said l and the NDC government have come to political again to destroy the economy of the country.
"...and we in the NPP knew how we are running the economy and the NDC and I come to take over the country and looked what had happening."
"So may be it was God destined that we should wait and that the time was not yet right. And that let the NPP government deal with its own messes and we in the NDC come after to revive the economy to show that we are good leaders in the management of the Ghana's economy," Former President told the Volta Chiefs.
