Rise above your pettiness – Atik blasts NDC over IPAC boycott

Atik Mohammed has lashed out at the largest opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for boycotting a political parties’ meeting with the Electoral Commission (EC) over their assessment of the 2020 Election.

The EC recently called for an Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting aimed at assessing the 2020 election processes and proposing recommendations for reforms.

But the NDC refused to join the meeting on grounds that the EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa and her Deputies lack credibility.

Reacting to the NDC’s boycott, Atik Mohammed, former PNC General Secretary, told the NDC to rise above their pettiness and look at the bigger picture of what their suggestions during IPAC meetings could do in making significant changes to Ghana’s electoral system.

He questioned the opposition party’s logic in refusing to attend the IPAC meetings because they have issues with the EC Chairperson and Deputies, stressing the meeting is an opportunity for them to broach their grievances.

“Can we rise above the pettiness or the smallness of some of these views which are not founded in any facts for the most part and know the Electoral Commission is our own asset?”, he blasted the NDC and any other political party that tows the line of the NDC.

He advised them to note that the EC’s “success is our success. They work for Ghana . . . If you have your frustrations, where else can you vent those frustrations other than a forum that the Electoral Commission has created for us to share our ideas going forward, but you say you won’t come? So, if decisions are taken and implemented as a result, you will see that people will come back and say they disagree with this. But where were you when those suggestions were being made? We cannot continue to do this to ourselves and to our democracy . . . this is the only intangible commodity that sells more than anything else”.

He spoke to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM’s ‘Kokrokoo’ programme.