John Dramani Mahama, former president of Ghana
The 2020 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has said the deployment of “illiterate” agents to some polling stations hurt the NDC’s chances at the polls.
The former president made this revelation at the annual conference of the NDC’s Professionals Forum on Thursday.
Mr. Mahama said this development came to light when some regional chairmen submitted their report on the 2020 general elections.
“Every region was asked to account for its performance in the 2020 elections. They came with reports and there was one region who stated that ‘some of our party agents were illiterate, they could not read or write.
“So it is obvious that they themselves have started doing a review of what went right or what went wrong. What they did well, leading to a positive outcome and what they could have done better,” he said.
He, therefore, charged NDC professionals to contest electoral officers role during elections as he believes could be a great service to the party.
“If you have the qualification to be presiding officer or other electoral officer apply for it. Our opponent has taken advantage of it, so you find that when the EC advertises, many of their people apply and you know what kind of advantages that can give them.
“And so we need to get more of our members including our student movement to get involved in becoming party agents at polling stations,” he stated.