The youth-led pressure group, Fix The Country, has petitioned President Nana Akufo-Addo for the removal of the Chair of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Adukwei Mensa, along with the EC’s deputies.
The action comes after accusations of electoral fraud by the EC during the country’s 2020 general election, in which votes at constituency collation centres were padded in favour of candidate Akufo-Addo.
According to a press update that accompanies the petition, also dated January 10 2022, “The petitioners comprise lawyers, academics, students, public and private sector employees, unemployed and homeless Ghanaians, and cuts across all political persuasions and ethnicities. The petitioners come from different towns and regions across the country and includes [sic] Ghanaians in the diaspora.”
The 46 individuals involved cite their grounds for the petition as a rebuttal to “the intentional denial of the right to vote in the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobiand Likpe in the 2020 general parliamentary elections.”
Dr Michael Kpessa-Whyte is one of those campaigning. He recalled “notic[ing] many material irregularities during the entire process of the December 7th, 2020, Presidential Election.”
An associated group, the Democratic Credentials Network Ghana, who is also demanding Mensa’s resignation, declared the EC boss’ election declaration] as flawed and a mathematical impossibility.
They note a sudden change of certified figures on the EC’s official website, from 13,433,573 to 13,119,460, as evidence of voting manipulation.