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One of the National Democratic Congress representatives in the Electoral Commission National collation centre during the 2020 general elections is set to testify tomorrow, February 8 2021.
Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, who was in the EC strong room with Dr Michael Kpessa-Whyte in his witness statement filed on Thursday said he was assured by the EC Chairperson Jean Mensa of addressing all their concerns before declaring the results.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo, who has filed his witness statement in support of the petitioner John Dramani Mahama in the ongoing election petition has expressed shock that no corrections were made when he reported the issues he had taken notice off to the EC boss on December 8, 2020.
The third witness, who is also a former Deputy Minister of Health, said he was misled by EC officials to sign the regional collation sheet for Ashanti region.
The NDC representative explained that he signed the sheet because there was a signature of the agent of Mr. Mahama on it.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo said he later realised that the sheet presented to him to sign was inconsistent with a tally of polling station results in the Ashanti Region.
In his statement, Mr Mettle-Nunoo noted that there were other concerns with the Eastern, Northern and Greater Accra Region collation sheets respectively.
“It is my express understanding that the entire election processes require very importantly a transparent assembling and collation of results so that no single vote of those who cast valid votes is left out of account and not one invalid vote is included in the votes taken into account.
“It is also my understanding that nothing other than votes cast validly at one of the accredited 38,622 polling stations should be factored into the collation af the 275 constituency collation centres through to the 16 regional centres and on to the strong room. At each stage, evidently corrections could be made in accordance with due process. I informed the EC Chair and she told me she would look into it,” excerpts of the statement said.
But the solution to these concerns was not to be as the EC Chair made a quick turn to declare the results in favour of the NPP presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo.
All these concerns, which was not addressed, he said undermined the credibility of the polls and cast grave doubts on the integrity of those assigned responsibilities for a free, fair and transparent election.
It will be recalled that the second witness for the petitioner, Dr Michael Kpessa-Whyte had mentioned that the EC Chairperson deceived them into leaving the strong room on December 9, last year.
In Mr Mettle-Nunoo’s witness statement, he corroborates the claim by Dr Kpessa-Whyte.
“She said very directly that we should go and speak with the petitioner,” he stated.
Source: Ghanaarticles.com/TheGhanaReport
