EC is in bed with NPP to manipulate 2024 elections – Siddique Abubakar

Member of the opposition NDC’s research team, Siddique Abubakar Suleiman has criticized the Electoral Commission’s refusal to agree to the demands of the opposition party to conduct an independent forensic audit of the 2024 voters’ register.

Speaking on Inside Politics programme on TV XYZ, the Policy analyst said the decision of the EC has angered thousands of youth in the country who were illegally transferred from their polling stations to different ones.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has alleged compromised data in the register to be used for the 2024 general elections and called for an independent forensic audit of the electoral roll which will be used for the 2024 general elections.

But the Electoral Commission (EC) has yet again rejected calls from the opposition NDC for a forensic audit of the Provisional Voter’s Register (PVR).

The EC maintains that the legal and administrative processes established to clean the register have not been fully exhausted, and thus a forensic audit is not justified at this stage.

This was communicated in a letter addressed to NDC Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, following the party’s petition submitted after a demonstration on September 17.

“As a Commission, we are of the view that the existing legal and administrative processes for cleaning the PVR have not been fully exhausted to justify the call for a forensic audit,” the EC stated.

The Commission said it does not require external assistance in its line of operations and that, there are already self-cleansing mechanisms adjudication committees which involves District Registration Review Officers to ensure all discrepancies are corrected before the printing of the final register.

The statement from EC Chair, Jean Mensah assured that so far, all anomalies detected during the voter register exhibition have been corrected.

It also said the EC will re-exhibit the corrected version of the voter register online, explaining that, the demand by the NDC cannot be met because its timetable ahead of December 7 is tight.

But siddique Abubakar Suleiman said the NDC data contradicts what the EC is portraying, calling for the NDC to stage a huge protest.

“I think the NDC should organise ourselves and hit the streets to get Jean Mensa to do the needful,” Suleiman stated while aguing that the NDC was birthed from revolution and can do a lot to halt the country’s daily businesses.

According to him, the NDC must stand up and reject the suggestions of the EC, since the leadership of the electoral management body and the NPP “are bed in bid to rig the elections for Dr Bawumia [Vice President and Leader of the ruling NPP] to be president.”