The Electoral Commission (EC) has referred the individuals who committed various electoral offences, as part of the endorsement of presidential nominee forms, to the Ghana Police Service for investigations and possible prosecution.
These offenses included cases of multiple registrations, forgery of signatures, and multiple endorsements of presidential nominees.
[contextly_sidebar id=”wpVoGN1PNRDXDZbLBIUNzqCLKdAjrQQX”]This comes on the back of the disqualification of 13 presidential nominees whose forms were endorsed by such persons. According to the EC, these acts are criminal in nature, hence their decision to ask the Attorney General to prosecute such persons.
The Deputy Director of Communications at the Commission, Yussif Ayuba, revealed to Citi News that the “Electoral Commission has compiled such persons and duly forwarded to the police for prosecution and now it is in the domain of the police.”
He noted that “there are various degrees of offenses that have been referred. Some are forgery, some are impersonation,” though he could not say when the investigations would commence.
When the EC was explaining reasons for the disqualification of the various aspirants, it noted that the the culprits fell foul of the following sections of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29): Section 211: Perjury, Section 248: making false declaration etc. for office or voting, Section 251: Deceiving a public officer and Section 256: Corruption, intimidation and impersonation in respect of election.
Evidence of some of the offenses were seen in the forms of the Progressive People’s Party’s (PPP) aspirant, Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, the All People’s Congress’ Hassan Ayariga, and the Independent People’s Party’s (IFP) Kofi Akpaloo, among others.
In the case of Dr. Nduom, the EC revealed that one of the subscribers who endorsed his nomination form was found to be legitimately on the register of the Volta Region, yet he went ahead to sign the forms in the Central Region as well with different signatures. The name of the subscriber was given as Richard Aseda.
The IPP’s Kofi Akpaloo, Hassan Ayariga of the APC, Dr. Nana Agyenim Boateng of the United Front Party, Dr. Henry Herbert Lartey of the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) and Thomas Nuako Ward-Brew of the Democratic People’s Party, similarly had multiple subscribers having different signatures on the nomination forms, again raising questions as to the legitimacy of the signatures.
In the case of the Reformed Democrat’s Party (RDP) Kwabena Adjei, two subscribers for his forms were not registered voters as they are on the exclusion list for multiple registrations, according to the EC.
The two persons are listed as Stephen Owusu and Fusheini Mariama/ Abdulai Mariama; both possessing two voter ID cards each.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana