Former NDC Central Regional Chairman, Bernard Allotey Jacobs
A former Central Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has called on the Electoral Commission to ban media access completely at the various collation centres during the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo on Thursday, November 28, 2024, Allotey Jacobs, who has been advocating for the Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, said giving the media access to collation centers will become grounds for misinformation and disinformation.
“The decision taken by the EC is in the best interest of all the political parties. Don’t allow the media houses, bloggers or whichever group to get closer to collation centers. It will be best for us, they shouldn’t be allowed. Even if they are part of the media and they are representing a political party, don’t allow them as far as they are known as being from a certain media house. They end up misinforming their leaders that certain events have taken place when it has actually not occurred. It happened in Techiman South; they misinformed,” he stated.
He added that the ban should be extended to include the national collation center, noting that the media should be kept away from the presidential result collation process.
“The same should be done at the EC head office. They should give the press houses a designated area away from the main collation center. Representatives of the various political parties, however, should be allowed at the collation center. Once everything is done, one of the officials can come and announce the result to the media for them to also go ahead and publish,” he stated.
The statement by Bernard Allotey Jacobs was in reaction to an earlier memo issued by the Electoral Commission announcing the restriction of media access to the constituency and regional collation centers during the December 7 election.
According to the EC, it will only allow selected media outlets access to the collation centers as a means of managing the crowd.
The EC noted that only eight media houses should be allowed into constituency collation centers. In contrast, the number at regional collation centers will be capped at 12.
Meanwhile, following public condemnation of the directive, the EC has since reversed the decision, according to some reports.
GA/AE
