Ayariga blames 'errors' on Charlotte Osei's failure as NCCE boss

Disqualified APC presidential candidate Hassan Ayariga has blamed Chairperson of the Electoral Commission for failing to live up to her responsibilities in her former job as NCCE boss.

Ayariga who is challenging the decision in court said he is being punished for 'errors' on his presidential nomination forms which should not have occured in the first place if Charlotte Osei had done her job properly as NCCE boss.

Hassan Ayariga was disqualifed after the EC said it had identified two of the required 432 endorsers who illegally endorsed his presidential nomination forms.

Charlotte Osei pointed out that Abaako Issifu and Abudu Ayuba contravened Regulation 7(4) of CI 94 when they endorsed Hassan Ayariga's forms. She also accused them of forging signatures.

But Ayariga who broke away from the PNC to form APC early this year explained that some of his supporters who moved away from PNC to join his new party may have also endorsed the candidate of their former party, the PNC.

He said Charlotte Osei, while the Chair of the National Commission for Civic Education, should have educated voters to avoid endorsing more than one presidential candidate.

Charlotte Osei was NCCE boss for four years before she was appointed in June 2015 as the first female chairperson of the Electoral Commission.

"For us that fault does not lie with political parties, it lies on the NCCE boss and Madam Charlotte Osei was the former boss of NCCE...so if those common mistakes are happening then it means the NCCE boss [then] did not do a good job" he told reporters after court.

Following her record in public office further, Hassan Ayariga said despite her new appoinment, Charlotte Osei again failed to do the same work of voter sensitization on electoral rules.

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