Before assuming office as President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo was defeated twice in his first and second bid by the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Former deputy communications minister, Felix Kwakye-Ofosu in 2013 predicted that Nana Akufo-Addo was going to retire in shame and not in dignity after failing to accept the will of the people in two different elections.
“Unfortunately, he has chosen the latter and for that reason, he will retire eventually but he will retire in ignominy instead of the dignity that otherwise he would have been deserving of”.
President Akufo-Addo eventually won the 2016 elections with 53.85% of the total votes cast. He defeated sitting president, John Dramani Mahama in the first round becoming the first opposition candidate to win a majority outright in the first round.
Read the full story originally published on January 6, 2013, on Ghanaweb
After four decades of building Ghana’s democratic culture, the New Patriotic Party leader, Nana Akufo-Addo will retire in shame and not in dignity a member of government’s communication team has said.
Felix Kwakye-Ofosu said the NPP leader chose to retire in shame after failing to accept the will of the people in two different elections.
“Nana Akufo-Addo as a person had two choices. The first one was that he succumbs to will of the good people of Ghana and retire in dignity after four decades of invaluable contribution to our democratic process. The second option was that he remains obstinate and retires in absolute ignominy because he has disrespected the mandate of the people of Ghana on two occasions. Unfortunately, he has chosen the latter and for that reason he will retire eventually but he will retire in ignominy instead of the dignity that otherwise he would have been deserving of,” Kwakye-Ofosu said on Radio Gold’s political talk show programme Alhaji& Alhaji on Saturday.
The government’s communication member said he was outraged by the conduct of the NPP because there was no “irregularity in this election and yet they have decided to hold 25 million people hostage.”
He said the petition sent to court by the NPP to contest the 2012 election results declared by the EC chairman was laughable.
According to him, the opposition party’s evidence of irregularity is not only concocted but unreasonable.
The NPP claimed in its press conference held on the day they filed the suit at the Supreme Court that there had been some 600,000 over-votes which were illegally counted.
The Vice-Presidential candidate of the party Dr Mahamudu Bawumia noted the over-votes were due to the fact that the total number of votes counted in some polling station were more than ballot papers issued.
He also mentioned the breach of the electoral law which said “no verification, no vote” at some polling stations which led to some people being allowed to vote when they were not qualified to do so.
But Kwakye Ofosu said the arguments by Bawumia are not sustainable.
He said there can only be over-voting if the total number of votes cast exceeded the total number of people eligible to vote in a particular area.
He said the polling centre Bawumia used as an example of the over-voting irregularity rather showed evidence of under-voting because the total number of votes cast was less than the total number of registered voters.
He also dismissed claims that people did not go through the verification process before voting.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com