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The NDC’s failed IT systems and false hope

John Mahama In NDC Strongroom 2020 Former President John Dramani Mahama in the NDC's IT room for election 2020

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 Source: Joel B

The other side of the coin. Prior to the 2020 elections the biggest opposition party the NDC deployed software and hardware technologies that they hoped would have helped them compile election results at the speed of light beating their arch-rival the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in results compilation but this IT system inadvertently FAILED!!!

Close sources information available to this writer confirms the IT systems of the NDC gave them FALSE HOPE as the results generated by the IT systems were in some cases different from the certified results announced at polling stations. No wonder the general secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah (aka General Mosquito) and other members of the NDC leadership were announcing they had won 140 parliamentary seats and the presidential seat which was TOTALLY FALSE.

For instance, their software had some glitches which used values for the provisional results to

fill in portions for certified results after entries by data clerks. And this was reported directly to their national collation center where the NDC leadership were feeding on this wrong data. They couldn’t change these provisional values which had automatically populated the certified results portion; leading to total misreporting and false hope that they had won the elections.

And also, there were indications some of the hardware's failed to operate and at some point they had to switch to manual compilation of results, which also resulted in a lot of stress and errors as data clerks were not ready and prepared for that work mode as they were inadequately trained.

Not forgetting confirmed reports also indicates the NDC party failed to deploy their IT systems on time hence causing a lot of setbacks and the reason being they were trying to hide their technologies from their arch-rival the NPP.

In summary, the NDC leadership shot themselves in the legs by depending on a FAILED IT SYSTEM that gave them wrong information and hence false hope. They need to conduct a proper and comprehensive audit of their IT systems and build upon it and come back stronger in 2024.

Columnist: Joel B