Impersonation allegation halts voting at Okaikwei South NPP primary

An allegation of impersonation halted voting at the Ghana Telecom University centre in the ongoing New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries at the Okaikwei South constituency in the Greater Accra Region.

The voting was halted for close to an hour over alleged impersonation by one of the delegates.

Graphic Online’s Timothy Ngnenbe reports that it all happened when one Martin Kwasi Asiamah was alleged to have voted in the name of Samuel Kwesi Asamoah without the officials of the Electoral Commission (EC) and the candidate agents noticing.

When Mr Samuel Kwesi Asamoah later turned up at the centre to cast his vote, it was detected that the box by his name had been ticked indicating that he had voted.

Mr Asamoah was therefore prevented from voting, a development that did not go down well with supporters of the various agents.

Tension

One of the contenders, Nana Fredua-Agyeman, took issues with the development and confronted the EC officials, resulting in the temporary halt of the voting process.

“It is unacceptable for one person to vote in another person’s name and so we must look for the one who impersonated and get him arrested,” he was heard saying.

After almost an hour of back and forth, the Okaikwei constituency executives were called to the centre to address the issue.

Resolution

The Okaikwei South constituency Secretary, Mr George Nii Kortei Quaye, told Graphic Online that the parties agreed that once it was an internal contest, they should allow the voting process to continue so that whatever issues there were would be addressed later.

Speaking to Graphic Online on the way forward, Nana Fredua-Agyeman said he was a firm believer in the right thing being done and that was why he pursued the issue.

“I have agreed that the voting process should continue but I still hold the strong view that people who do the wrong thing should be put right,” he stressed.

Graphic Online observed that some delegates at that centre left the centre holding standing fans.

Some of them accused the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Ahmed Arthur, of being selective in giving out the fans.

“When Nana Fredua-Agyeman was sharing his thing, he gave everyone, but Mr Ahmed who is the MP is being selective,” one of them said.

Responding to those allegations of vote-buying, Nana Fredua-Agyeman said he had not engaged in such a thing.

“Yes, I gave the delegates a thank you gift for coming to vote but I did not do so to buy a vote,” he said.

Asked what the “thank you gift” was, he said, “it is a gift and that is it.”