<<Print>>

General Secretary for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia was on Wednesday confronted with an interview he granted Accra based Citi FM on December 20th during which he admitted most of the issues he had earlier denied while in the witness box in the ongoing Presidential Election Petition challenging the declared outcome of the December Presidential Elections. While being cross examined by lead Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia stated that he did not hear the Chairman of the Electoral Commission saying that all polling stations where the votes in the ballot box exceeded the number of people verified to vote would be annulled and said that the Inter � Party Advisory Council never took any decision of the sort. This denial among many other denials led Counsel Philip Addison to remind the NDC General Secretary of an interview he granted Citi FMs Richard Sky on the station�s �Point Blank� program and asked him if he recalled the statements he made during the particular interview. General Mosquito, as he is popularly called, stated that he could not recall the interview or the statements he made in the said interview prompting, Counsel Philip Addison to seek leave from the court to play a tape of the interview. When eventually the tape was played, Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia was clearly heard stating that at IPAC the parties had agreed that no person should be allowed to vote without verification. �Let somebody come out to say that at this particular polling station there was voting without biometric verification and that those polling stations must be annulled. We agreed at IPAC level that there is no way voting should take place without biometric verification and these were all agreed before we went into the election. So it is surprising that any political party would not inform its agents or the electoral commission would not inform its officials and that would happen.� When confronted on the said interview that some Presiding officers had confessed on radio and in the media including on Citi FM that they had allowed voting without biometric verification, Mr. Asiedu Nketiah went as far as calling for the jailing of such officials for allowing the malpractice in their polling stations. �I think that those people must be in jail by now, if anything of that nature happened because I would be surprised. You remember that the last two weeks of the elections, the clarion call of all the parties and electoral commission in all the adverts and all was no verification, no vote,� he said. On what should happen to polling stations which were found to have had irregularities affecting the conduct and outcome of the polls, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah stated that such stations could be annulled and taken out of the constituency and national tally despite stating earlier in his examination in chief that polling stations cannot be annulled because one vote or more was found to be irregular. �If there is evidence that any such thing happened, you and I know that the electoral law provides that where irregularities are detected at particular polling station, the sanctions could be that the results of those particular polling stations would be cancelled and taken out of the national tally; so that is it. � Finally, most and perhaps interestingly, Mr. Asiedu Nketia was heard in the tape admitting the definition of over voting by the petitioners though he had stated in his examination in chief and cross examination that over voting was only when the votes in the ballot box was more than the voters registered in the polling station. �If something happens that should not have happened according to the electoral law, the results if cancelled and taken out of the constituency tally would affect everybody equally because nobody would know who has cast his ballot there and in much the same way if you open the ballot box and you count and the number of votes inside the ballot box are found to be in excess of the number that actually voted, or if the votes there are in excess of the number of registered voters at the polling station, that is automatic cancellation.� Below is the video...Press Play to Watch the interview Richard Sky of CitiFM had with Johnson Asiedu Nketia