PNC Gen Sec Parries Blame...I'm Not A Magician

General Secretary of the People's National Convention (PNC) Atik Mahama says he is not a "magician" to have foreseen that some of the people who subscribed to the nomination form of the party's flagbearer, Dr. Edward Mahama also endorsed other aspirants. Dr. Edward Mahama was disqualified by Electoral Commission from contesting the Presidential race. The Commission stated did not accept Dr. Mahama's form due to reasons that "many subscribers did not properly sign the forms. Thumbprints, signatures or marks were omitted all together. For instance; no signatures on Page 16, 24, 28. Two subscribers to Dr. Mahama’s nominations also subscribed for another presidential candidate." The EC Boss further indicated that the Commission will "refer the matter of the possible forgeries of these signatures to the Ghana Police Service and the Attorney General for investigation and prosecution" under the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29). Following the EC's decision, the party's General Secretary has been blamed for failing to conduct due diligence in the filing of the form to the Electoral Commission. But responding to his critics, Atik Mohammed wondered how they expected him to oversee all the mistakes by the subscribers to avert double endorsements. According to him, he and other leaders of the party worked days and nights to ensure that their candidate makes it to the list of qualified Presidential aspirants for the 2016 elections. "My due diligence should have been that I should run all the subscribers against all other candidates to distinguish them; how was I supposed to do that? What saddens me is that these are individuals who were not even involved in this process. Everybody who matters came, I mean they put their shoulders to the wheel. We worked day and night…” He however assured the party faithfuls that the party leadership will not hesitate to pursue their matter in the law court. "We’ve written to them officially that we want to have a meeting with them to explain the issues. But depending on the outcome of that meeting, the PNC will not hesitate to head the direction of the court.” Atik Mohammed argued that the omission of signatures, thumbprints and so forth including the double subscribers or endorsements were an oversight on the part of the party. To him, the EC could have spared them the disqualification if the Commission had read the forms when they presented it to them. He explained that the Commission would have noticed the mistakes and drew their attention to them to be corrected. “It is not as if the Electoral Commission is some separate entity whose work that we want to reduce the number of participants in our democratic process. They are supposed to be partners in this process. To the extent that our candidate does not possess dual citizenship, to the extent that it’s not like there were not individuals to endorse his form or to subscribe to his nomination; I do not think the Electoral Commission should have been this high-handed in giving the kind of verdict they gave," he said.

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi /Peacefmonline.com/Ghana