Officials of the Electoral Commission met with former President John Mahama on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 in Accra, amid ‘tight’ security.
The meeting held at the former President’s Office at East Cantonments, saw police officers being barred from entering the meeting room with guns.
At a point Stan Dogbe said emphatically “no guns inside.”
That apparently forced the police officers to sit at the reception throughout rather than entering the meeting hall.
One of the two police officers spotted at the venue came with the EC Chairperson Jean Mensa.
Journalists were equally blocked from entering the meeting hall with their phones.
A former presidential staffer during the tenure of Mr. Mahama, Stan Dogbe was standing right at the entrance of the meeting hall together with another person, apparently a private security officer, asking journalists to hand over their phones to them.
Journalists sitting outside the meeting hall waiting for the closed door meeting to end to be brief Pleas from journalists to be allowed in the meeting room with their phones to aid them take pictures for their reportages, fell on deaf ears, as Mr. Dogbe insisted that no phones should be allowed into the hall.
After the initial welcome remarks, Mr. Mahama personally asked journalists to leave the meeting room for a heart-to-heart closed door meeting with the EC officials, a sharp departure from the two previous meetings with former Presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and Jerry John Rawlings where journalists sat in from the beginning of the meeting to the end.
Mrs. Mensa told the former President that the purpose of their visit was to among other things, seek his support and partnership for the activities of the Commission.
She said it was also to bring the Commission to the doorstep of the opposition National Democratic Congress and to create a platform for dialogue.
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