KOFI ADAMS BLAMES IT FOR NDC DEFEAT

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Under-fire National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Kofi Adams, has blamed the defeat of the party in the December 7 general election to ‘systems failure.’

According to Kofi Adams, who was also the National Coordinator of President John Mahama’s Campaign Team, the party’s Information Technology (IT) system set up to monitor the election results did not help the ruling party on the election day.

“I think there was a system failure,” he said and insisted that the NDC had a “solid campaign strategy.”

He maintained, “It was our wish that this party – NDC - was going to continue the great job it is doing but that did not happen and I personally take full responsibility for the defeat of our party and that of president Mahama,” he said.

However, he could not explain how the IT system failed them.

NDC Supporters

Currently, some NDC supporters across the country are baying for the blood of the party’s gurus for disappointing them, but some of the national executives have shot back, saying they would not resign from their positions.

It is emerging that the NDC campaign strategists did not even have any alternative plans during the election because they were very confident that their machinery was going to push President Mahama into his second term in office; but the opposition NPP’s vigilance destroyed all their election machinations, including a possible rigging.

One Term President

The NPP’s candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, made sure that President Mahama become a one-term president in the history of Ghana by flooring him (Mahama) with 53.85% against the president’s 44.40%. The vote margin is over one million.

Apart from President Mahama’s humiliating defeat, the NDC also lost about 49 parliamentary seats to the NPP and is now going into the next dispensation as minority in parliament with only 104 seats against the NPP’s 171.

Even when it had become clear the NDC was heading to a crashing defeat, its leaders, including Kofi Adams, were in the media telling the party’s sympathizers and supporters that President Mahama was winning.

STUNNAD Demand

In the ensuing analysis, a group calling itself Students Network for Nana Addo (STUNNAD) had challenged the NDC to explain how the party ended up performing abysmally on December 7.

A statement issued and jointly singed by Chris Arthur and Eric Ato Smith, national president and deputy secretary respectively said, “We write to register our deepest disappointment and displeasure at President John Mahama and the NDC party, as we demand from them to prove their so-called ‘we are in the comfortable lead’ claim.”

The statement recounted how NDC leaders, including President Mahama, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and Johnson Asiedu Nketia took turns to assure their supporters that the party was winning when in fact, it was trailing behind the NPP badly.

EC& NDC Plans

STUNNAD demanded from the NDC leaders to explain to the public where their so-called collation centre was located, alleging, “The NDC positioned their collation hub into the Electoral Commission's E-transmitting System and channeled it to their system on the top floor of their new Adabraka office in an attempt to massage the figures as coming from various constituencies before they forward it to EC's National Collation Centre.”

The statement added, “This was how the NDC was planning to rig the elections with the EC. Thank God the NPP and the media got the results first.”

STUNNAD wanted to know whether the sets of pink sheets the NDC was going to use to collate the results “were different from the media houses and the rest of the political parties.”

“We strongly feel the consistent declaration, ‘We are in the lead’ was a deliberate attempt by the NDC and President Mahama to incite their supporters not to accept the final declaration,” adding, “This we feel was a recipe for chaos.”