Mahama Promises NDC Agents Tea, Biscuits2 min read

Former President John Dramani Mahama, who is attempting a return to the Jubilee House, has promised tea and cookies to the party’s agents who will be sent to the Electoral Commission’s (EC) National Collation Centre popularly known as “Strong Room.”

According to him, this is part of the strategy to ensure absolute strictness in the monitoring of the collation process to prevent any possible rigging.

The pledge follows Rojo Mettle-Nunoo’s declaration during the Supreme Court’s hearing of the 2020 presidential election petition that he was tricked by the EC Chairperson into leaving the Strong Room, during which he was handed tea without a biscuit.

Mr. Mettle-Nunoo, an NDC agent at the Strong Room, was the petitioner, John Dramani Mahama’s third witness.

The ex-President told NDC delegates at Ashaley Botwe in Accra that the party would be more attentive in the 2024 elections.

He revealed that the party would send agents who would not sleep at the various collation centres, saying, “We will remain at the collation centres until every ballot has been counted. We’ll match them in the EC’s Strong Room.”

The NDC flagbearer hopeful stated that the party’s agents would no longer require the EC’s tea or cookies since they would make provisions for them.

“Those we select to go to the Strong Room, we will give them our own tea and digestive biscuits to take with them,” he emphasised.

Mr. Mahama accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of putting its activists into positions at the EC, suggesting that the party was afraid to lose the general election.

“We are going to match them at the polling stations. We don’t want to cheat anybody, but we don’t want anybody to cheat us. So we are going to mark them at the polling station and make sure that no extra ballot papers come from somewhere into that ballot box,” he asserted.

Mr. Mahama urged NDC branch and constituency executives to be very vigilant and actively participate in the voting processes in their respective polling stations, saying, “Elections are won or lost at the polling stations.”

According to him, the party will commit vigilance at polling stations to the executives, as well as campaign activities, to ensure free, fair, and transparent elections.

He stated that the party was putting in place a strong mechanism to allow for the transmission of results from the branch and constituency levels to the national headquarters of the party, and that this was a new system that would necessitate some training.