Charlotte Osei – EC Boss
Former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Martin Alamisi Burns Kaiser Amidu, believes the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration appointed Charlotte Osei, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), for the purpose of rigging the 2016 general election in favour of the then incumbent administration.
In his latest article, the former Attorney General and anti-corruption campaigner blamed the NDC for the chaos that has erupted in the leadership of the EC, saying it “portends a bad omen for the Congress.”
It follows claims and counter claims by Charlotte Osei and her two Deputies, Amadu Sulley and Georgina Opoku-Amankwa, of corruption, abuse of office and constitutional breaches at the EC, which smack of incompetence after a petition was sent to President Akufo-Addo for the removal of the EC Chairperson and her deputies.
Petitions sent to the president for the removal of the three commissioners had been delivered to the Chief Justice for action. DAILY GUIDE learnt that the Chief Justice had communicated to the three people for their responses.
According to Mr Amidu, “The last few weeks saw the EC Chair, Ms. Osei – with the conditions of service of a justice of the Court of Appeal – descending into the gutters and casting aspersions on her two deputy commissioners – also with the conditions of service of justices of the high court.”
He insisted, “She completely lost her comportment, decorum, and above all, the high moral character and proven integrity of a Justice of the Court of Appeal, to exhibit absolute patience in the face of every provocation so as to maintain the honour and dignity of her high office as the Electoral Commissioner and of the Commission as a whole – simply because the constitutional right of petitioning for her removal had been invoked against her.”
For Mr Amidu, “The Chairperson of the Commission had a supreme responsibility to maintain the integrity of the priceless Commission of which she had leadership. She should not have allowed herself to have been baited into fighting and exchanging vituperative words publicly with both deputy commissioners and other members of management.”
In view of that, Mr Amidu concluded, “She once more exhibited her incompetence and lack of leadership skills that, in my view, rendered her unfit for appointment to the high office of Electoral Commissioner in the first place.”
Rigging Agenda
“But as I said time without number during the 2016 elections, she was appointed by a corrupt government precisely because of her incompetence that made her susceptible for use for an election rigging agenda,” he alleged.
However, he indicated, “Her appointing government” [referring to the Mahama’s administration] failed in the rigging agenda, despite all the attempts by the Commission to narrow the election to a two-party race to facilitate easy rigging for the incumbent.”
He wondered why the petition to the president for her removal from office by some alleged officers of the Commission made her to welcome support from the leadership of the NDC in and out of parliament.
“They in turn, without producing any evidence, charged the NPP government in several statements and interviews published in the media with witch-hunting her from office.”
Mr Amidu observed that “the responses of the two Deputy Commissioners, who had been longer on the job than the Chairperson, cannot be said to be witch-hunting by the NPP.”
NDC’s Role
“However, the NDC, which had alienated almost all their experienced and founding, strategic and tactical thinking members, just could not think very deeply of the consequences of their three appointees fighting one another in public at the Commission,” he stated, adding, “I suspected that once the NDC had openly taken the side of the Chairperson whom we, anti-corruption crusaders, suspected was appointed with a rigging agenda, they threw caution to the wind and could not have the patience of old age to cut their losses.”
He therefore stressed the belief that “The NDC’s precipitate defensive actions, without waiting for the blood to cool and reason to assume its seat, when the petition against their appointed Electoral Commission Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, became public knowledge, may see all the three Commissioners appointed by the Congress or a number of them whipped out of office and new ones appointed by their so-called adversaries, the NPP.”
He said that happened because “we all remained silent and allowed charlatans and strangers to our values and ideals to hijack the NDC and alienate the most committed, selfless and experienced strategic and tactical founding thinkers of the party.”
Interestingly, Mr Amidu said, “She” [referring to Charlotte Osei] “has, either on her own or at the instance of her mentor, been trying to recycle herself as a neutral Electoral Commissioner after her Church Papa mediated her peaceful announcement of the election results.”
Worry
Amidu, popularly called Citizen Vigilante for his anti-corruption crusade, wondered why the defence of the Chairperson got the NDC so incensed that their surrogates decided to throw out the baby with the bath water by petitioning against the two other appointees, insisting that “this could not have happened in the founding NDC because the incompetent and massive loser, John Dramani Mahama, would never have had the chance to fool the youth to kill all their parents and be without experienced elders to consult for strategic and tactical decision-making.
“We are now working in the NDC kingdom without fathers which John Mahama created, and with which he massively lost the elections. Should all the three Commissioners or one or two be removed from office, the NDC can only have itself to blame for its predicament and not any witch-hunters from the NPP, after being petitioners ourselves to facilitate the possible removal of all three Commissioners.”
The Citizen Vigilante has therefore expressed the hope that “the NDC has learnt bitter lessons from the John Mahama government’s inept looting and losing leadership style and wish to God that we can collectively reorganize the party to instill that level of integrity and honour that will give us a chance in the nearest future to return to lead a true incorruptible social democratic government of the people and for the people of Ghana.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu