Johnson Asiedu Nketiah clarifies; Rojo and Kpessa Whyte vindicated

Election 2020 left our nation with many unanswered questions, and I have been wondering whether some of those questions would ever be answered. But recently, I saw a video in which the National Chairman of the NDC, Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, spoke, perhaps openly for the first time, saying the NDC agents in the EC strongroom during the 2020 presidential elections did not leave the strongroom on their own. Rather, they were instructed to do so based on an agreement the party and its flagbearer had with the National Peace Council during the collation of presidential election results.

In the said video, Mr. Asiedu Nketia narrates that as tensions rose during the collation periods and inconsistencies in some results were detected by the NDC agents in the strongroom, the Peace Council approached the NDC Flagbearer and requested that a meeting be arranged with all the stakeholders, including the international observers, to iron out the issues so that any result declared at the end reflects the will of the people.

As such, a meeting was scheduled to take place at Movenpick Hotel at 2:00 pm, and based on this, the Peace Council contacted and coordinated all the stakeholders and reverted to the NDC Flagbearer with the assurance that the meeting would take place. At this point, the EC decided to halt activities in the EC Strongroom so that all the parties could converge at the Movenpick meeting. As such, the NDC authorized its agents to proceed out of the place and join the team to prepare for that meeting.

As soon as the NDC agents left the strongroom, the NPP mounted pressure on Jean Mensa and compelled her to declare whatever results she collated in favor of the NPP. This came to the NDC as a surprise, especially as the Peace Council was the mediator, and the party thought all other stakeholders involved would act in good faith.

To cleverly cover their decision to not allow Jean Mensa to mount the witness box for interrogation, lawyers of the NPP in court mischievously threw in a question about tea the EC offered Rojo while he was waiting to have a meeting with Jean Mensa to clarify a few of the concerns noticed in the collation. This single act of deception threw the country, especially the uncritical media, into a state of ecstatic frenzy albeit failing to ask the most important questions to unravel the truth.

Sadly, Asiedu Nketiah, who was the star witness for John Mahama, ignored to indicate the role of the Peace Council in the strongroom debacle to set the ground for accounts provided by the two agents in the strongroom who acted as subsequent witnesses. That omission by Asiedu Nketiah was inadvertent but also left the NDC's case incoherent.

But Asiedu Nketiah must be applauded for coming out with the truth now and answering important questions about the integrity of the two NDC agents. At least we now know Rojo and Kpessa-Whyte did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, the entire situation set for all of us to ridicule them and accuse them baselessly and needlessly. This is one example of how our country discourages selflessness and sacrificial efforts.

I have followed the politics of Rojo for a while and know he remains probably the only person who has consistently been in the strongroom for the NDC since 1992. The evidence of his commitment to that exercise was illustrated in the documentary "An African Election" where he issued a serious warning to Kwabena Agyepong and the NPP in the same EC strongroom in collation of the 2008 presidential results. Kpessa-Whyte's work in government, especially the cleanup of ghost names at the National Service Scheme where he saved the country hundreds of millions of cedis under John Mahama, is a testimony of his integrity and honesty. Taken together, the party certainly sent the right people to the EC, but when it matters most, the party took cover and allowed them to be abusively slaughtered in the media and by political opponents.

Better late than never, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has cleared the air, but how sure are we that people will voluntarily sacrifice for the party in dangerous times knowing what might happen when things go wrong? The long silence of the party on the issue also risks any of the two NDC agents being physically attacked by enthusiastic party fanatics who might think they were the cause of the NDC's defeat in 2020. The biggest lesson from this situation is for all of us to hesitate to conclude on issues, especially when the matters involve the integrity and reputation of others.

In the end, notwithstanding the risks and the public ridicule suffered by Rojo and Kpessa-Whyte, the two have demonstrated their tenacity to take blows for the NDC as a party, and this alone is an enviable quality of very remarkable people. Shall we say out of a depressing situation in which they were insulted and accused of all manner of wrongdoing; these two men now stand as living examples of qualities worth emulating? I think so!