Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), by its action, is preparing the grounds to reject the results of this year’s polls.
To achieve this, the NPP has said, the opposition party is set on doing two main objectives: “first, to project the EC as not credible, incompetent and biased, and second, to create a false sense of insecurity to hoodwink the electorate.”
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, a Deputy National Campaign Manager of the NPP, in charge of communications, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, wondered how the flagbearer of the NDC, John Mahama, who on April 4, 2016 called on all political parties and other stakeholders to allow the Charlotte Osei-led EC to peacefully execute its mandate, can now turn around to lead attacks on the Jean Mensa-led EC.
He reiterated a quote made by Mr Mahama on June 10, 2020, that “the NDC will not accept the results of a flawed election”, to buttress his point that the NDC is preparing to reject the results.
“This clearly shows the unwillingness of candidate Mahama and the NDC to accept the outcome of the 2020 general elections, should the NDC lose,” he noted.
Creating insecurity
Dr Abdul-Hamid noted that the NDC is pursuing unscrupulous activities as a knee-jerk reaction to avert the grand defeat that awaits the party on December 7, adding that through propaganda, the NDC is creating a false state of insecurity in the country to play on the emotions of Ghanaians for electoral gains.
“Statements by leading members of the party such as Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Sammy Gyamfi, and Inusah Fuseini, amongst others, affirm this assertion,” he noted.
He mentioned a media report in which the General Secretary of the NDC is reported to have alleged that the government was issuing weapons from the state armoury to over 4,000 pro-NPP vigilantes.
“This blatant falsehood is part of the NDC’s grand scheme to fictitiously create a worrying state of insecurity to deceive the electorate,” he said.
Fake news
The NPP also called out the leadership of the NDC for resorting to the spread of fake news to dent the image of the Akufo-Addo government. Dr Abdul-Hamid listed some fake news portals created to mimic established media houses by the NDC to lead the spread of fake news.
“Indeed, the NDC has registered and is using so many of such domain names to populate the internet space with a lot of fake news. They mimic established media houses like the Ghana News Agency and such state news agencies. So, they have ghananewsavenue.com, bbcnewsghana.com and ghanapoliticsonline.com
“It was therefore not surprising that leading NDC operatives started referencing graphicgh.com, the fake news portal, as the source for the alleged blacklisting of Ghana by the European Union (EU),” he said.
On a recent fake news concerning allegations of money laundering levelled against some government officials, the Minister of Zongos and Inner Cities Development noted that statement by Ambassador Diana Acconcia, Head of EU’s delegation to Ghana, which debunked the said allegations, has stripped the NDC naked.
He added that the National Cyber Security Centre has also confirmed that an audio circulating on social media, purported to be from an international media outlet suggesting that a government official was involved in laundering money to the UK, is also fake.
“Perhaps, what is most shocking and what amounts to throwing all decency to the wind, is when a lawyer, Inusah Fuseini, and a legislator goes on public record to repeat such blatant and obvious lies. It is amazing how because of politics people can jettison the ethics of their profession,” he said.
He added that the “Ghana Revenue Authority has issued a statement to debunk the NDC’s allegation that a so-called big man in government is arm-twisting its agents at the Tema Port to release arms that were illegally imported into the country.”
He urged the media and all Ghanaians to ask the NDC what it seeks to achieve by constantly raising the temperature of the country and seeking to create an atmosphere of insecurity.
Revisiting old strategies
Dr Abdul-Hamid reminded Ghanaians how in 2008 the NDC put out names and so-called account numbers of NPP Ministers, under President Kufuor, with ridiculous amounts of monies allegedly deposited in their accounts. The said amount in total exceeded Ghana’s entire resource envelope.
“The desire by the NDC to lie against the NPP knows no bounds, even if it means insulting the intelligence of the Ghanaian people by thinking that Ghanaians are so gullible as to believe anything and everything. We remember how in 2008 they lied that President Kufuor had sold all the bars at the Bank of Ghana. We in the NPP disagree with the NDC in their belief that politics is a dirty game and must be played in a dirty and unethical fashion,” he stated.
The NPP has therefore called on Ghanaians, especially civil society organisations (CSO), the National Peace Council, leaders of religious organisations and chiefs, “to condemn NDC’s diabolic plan to misinform Ghanaians and create fear and panic in the country.”
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