Asiedu Nketiah – General Secretary of NDC
Confusion has set in at the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Techiman South Constituency of the Bono East Region.
A faction is accusing the other of altering the Statement of Poll and the Declaration of Results Forms, popularly called Pink Sheets, used during internal elections.
The NDC is currently in court trying to overturn the Techiman South Parliamentary results declared by the EC in favour of the NPP’s Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah against their candidate, Christopher Beyere.
However, the NDC leadership in the constituency has turned their arsenals at each other over the alleged forgery of Pink Sheets which has compelled an officer to sue the other in court for defamation.
The action was filed by Abdul Hameed Zakaria, aka Bin Laden, who is the NDC Director of Elections in Techiman South, against Issah Mahmud Ali who is the constituency’s communications officer.
According to the elections director, the communications officer issued a press release titled, “Politics of divide and rule and tribalism, the hallmark of Abdul Hameed Zakaria (Bin Laden),” and according to him, was defamatory.
He is claiming that the communications officer without any provocation has subjected him to “scathing reputational and character assassination and attack.”
He averred that in the said press statement which ran into some 12 pages, the communications officer attributed the loss of the NDC in Techiman South to him and described him as “stupid, criminal, a thief, fraudster and a scammer.”
The communications officer is alleging that the Director of Elections forged and altered Pink Sheets used in declaring the NDC constituency poll among a litany of allegations.
He is blowing the cover of his own party that some leading members allegedly engaged in the forgery of signatures and tried to blame Mr. Zakaria as the mastermind.
“Election Director forged the signature of the Seconder, Mariam Jibreel, on the nomination forms. Bin Laden lied and convinced the Constituency Chairman and the Parliamentary Candidate of Techiman South to sign a letter directing Techiman Municipal Director of Electoral Commission not to deal with the constituency secretary, Suleman Twih Brempong, in terms of election correspondence because he could not be trusted. All these evil and outrageous tactics were propagated against the constituency secretary and the party,” the defendant had fired in the press release which incensed the elections director to take the court action.
In the ensuing heat, the director of elections is asking the court to award him GH¢490,000 as damages against the communications officer for defamation, compel him to render unqualified apology to the plaintiff and restrain him from making further defamatory comments about him.