'Incompetent' EC boss was appointed to rig 2016 polls – Amidu

A former Attorney General and Minister for Justice Martin Amidu says the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama-led government must be blamed for the current conflict between the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei and her deputies.

Mrs. Osei and two of her deputies, Georgina Amankwaa and Amadu Sulley have been trading accusations at each other over the last few weeks. While the deputies accuse their boss of incompetence and arrogance, Mrs Osei has hit back accusing them of corruption and financial malfeasance.

A petition seeking the removal of Mrs. Osei by an unknown staff of the election management body is currently being examined by the Chief Justice.

In his latest epistle, Mr. Amidu claimed that the EC boss was appointed to help the NDC government execute a rigging agenda which failed. “But as I said time without number during the 2016 elections, she was appointed by a corrupt Government precisely because of her incompetence that made her susceptible for use for an election rigging agenda.

“Her appointing Government failed in the rigging agenda despite all the attempts by the Commission to narrow the election to a two-party race to facilitate easy rigging for the incumbent. She has, either on her own or at the instance of her mentor, been trying to recycle herself as a neutral Electoral Commissioner after her Church Papa mediated her peaceful announcement of the election results,” he said.

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NDC CREATED THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION CHAOS THAT NOW PORTENDS A BAD OMEN FOR THE CONGRESS: BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU

The NDC’s precipitate defensive actions, without waiting for the blood to cool and reason to assume its seat, when the petition against their appointed Electoral Commission Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, became public knowledge, may see all the three Commissioners appointed by the Congress or a number of them whipped out of office and new ones appointed by their so called adversaries, the NPP.

This is happening because we all remained silent and allowed charlatans and strangers to our values and ideals to hi-jack the NDC and alienate the most committed, selfless and experienced strategic and tactical founding thinkers of the party.

The last few weeks saw the Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, with the conditions of service of a Justice of the Court of Appeal, descending into the gutters and casting aspersion on her two Deputy Commissioners, also with the conditions of service of Justices of the High Court.

She completely lost her comportment, decorum, and above all the high moral character and proven integrity of a Justice of the Court of Appeal to exhibit absolute patience in the face of every provocation so as to maintain the honour and dignity of her high office as the Electoral Commissioner and of the Commission as a whole – simply because the constitutional right of petitioning for her removal had been invoked against her.

Come what may, the Chairperson of the Commission had a supreme responsibility to maintain the integrity of the priceless Commission of which she had leadership.

She should not have allowed herself to have been baited into fighting and exchanging vituperative words publicly with both Deputy Commissioners and other members of management.

Speaking for myself, she once more exhibited her incompetence and lack of leadership skills that in my view rendered her unfit for appointment to the high office of Electoral Commissioner in the first place.

But as I said time without number during the 2016 elections, she was appointed by a corrupt Government precisely because of her incompetence that made her susceptible for use for an election rigging agenda. Her appointing Government failed in the rigging agenda despite all the attempts by the Commission to narrow the election to a two-party race to facilitate easy rigging for the incumbent.

She has, either on her own or at the instance of her mentor, been trying to recycle herself as a neutral Electoral Commissioner after her Church Papa mediated her peaceful announcement of the election results.

The petition to the President for her removal from office by some alleged officers of the Commission made her to welcome support even from the leadership of the NDC in and out of Parliament.

They in turn, without producing any evidence charged the NPP Government in several statements and interviews published in the media with witch-hunting her from office. The two Deputy Electoral Commissioners who were also appointed to the Commission by the past NDC Government felt compelled to explain their versions in response to the unusual accusations from their Chairperson in the media, as though they supported the petition against her, Charlotte Osei.

The responses of the two Deputy Commissioners who had been longer on the job than the Chairperson cannot be said to be witch-hunting by the NPP. However, the NDC, which had alienated almost all their experienced and founding strategic and tactical thinking members just could not think very deeply about the consequences of their three appointees fighting each other in public at the Commission.

I suspected that once the NDC had openly taken the side of the Chairperson whom we, anti-corruption crusaders, suspected was appointed with a rigging agenda, they threw caution to the wind and could not have the patience of old age to cut their losses.

My fears that the chaos at the Commission would lead the present young crop of the NDC to self-destruct was confirmed when I discovered on 29th and 31st July 2017 respectively that the author of the second petition for the removal of the two Deputy Commissioners was Emmanuel Korsi Senyo, the concerned citizen, who had acted in the past as an NDC surrogate commencing action against the General Legal Council in the Supreme Court in defence of Francis Sosu, who had contested the primaries in my constituency, Madina, for the NDC. The second petition is not, therefore, from any witches from the NPP let alone to hunt the Deputy Commissioners.

A quick Google search will establish that Emmanuel Korsi Senyo a.k.a Emmanuel Korsi Senyo Kumedzina is a young activist of the NDC and “Tutor and Head of Department Social Science at the St Prosper College, Ho” who graduated from KNUST sometime in 2009. This discovery made me to find out whether the NDC could blame anybody should the investigations of the three petitions lead to the removal of all three Commissioners and how that was going to be an achievement for the NDC.

Certainly, the NPP would then appoint all the three new Commissioners should the independent Committees investigating the allegations contained in the three petitions find all three Commissioners guilty of the charges against them.

What is the political utility to the NDC if the Committees do find even the two Deputy Commissioners guilty as charged? So, I asked my NDC colleagues the question, why did the defence of the Chairperson get the NDC so incensed that their surrogates decided to throw out the baby with the bath water by petitioning against their two other appointees?

This could not have happened in the founding NDC because the incompetent and massive looser John Dramani Mahama would never have had the chance to fool the youth to kill all their parents and be without experienced elders to consult for strategic and tactical decision-making. We are now working in the NDC kingdom without fathers which John Mahama created, and with which he massively lost the elections.

Should all the three Commissioners or one or two be removed from office, the NDC can only have itself to blame for its predicament and not any witch-hunters from the NPP after being petitioners ourselves to facilitate the possible removal of all three Commissioners.

I hope the NDC has learnt bitter lessons from the John Mahama Government’s inept looting and losing leadership style and wish to God that we can collectively reorganize the party to instil that level of integrity and honour that will give us a chance in the nearest future to return to lead a true incorruptible social democratic Government of the people and for the people of Ghana.