A
leading member of the National Democratic Congress’ legal team, Abraham
Amaliba says the petition by the leadership of the opposition New
Patriotic Party (NPP) at the Supreme Court is an attempt to disrupt the
governance of President John Mahama and make him “ungovernable.”
According
to him, what the NPP seeks to do is to prolong their case before the
court and therefore put the legitimacy of the President at stake.
Without mincing words, Lawyer Abraham Amaliba posited that the petitioners’ case is “frivolous” and “without merit”.
He
explained: “At the last adjourned date when we were in court, we cited
an amended petition which was filed at the Registry…In that amended
petition, they are seeking to increase the number of polling stations
that they are contesting to 11000 plus. Then, one would want to find out
whether this is not an attempt to prolong the matter in court, so that
they would continue in their argument that they do not recognize
President John Mahama and make his governance of this country [something
to say] ungovernable.”
Speaking on Citi FM Saturday morning,
Lawyer Amaliba added that the revelations by the petitioners; Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and NPP National Chairman, Jake
Obetsebi-Lamptey, are geared towards stalling the court verdict which he
believes will vindicate the President.
The New Patriotic Party
under the auspices of their Presidential candidate Nana Addo and its
leadership are challenging the 2012 electoral results. The plaintiffs
petitioned the Supreme Court to seek redress over their alleged issue of
rigging during the 2012 Presidential elections.
Lawyers of the
petitioners last Thursday presented their case before the Supreme Court,
disclosing that there were some irregularities in the results declared
by the Electoral Commission in favour of President John Mahama.
The
petitioners on Monday, January 28, 2013, disclosed in court that they
had discovered irregularities in the election results at 4709 polling
stations across the country.
This disclosure was however
challenged by the respondents’ legal team led by Tsatsu Tsikata who
demanded a detailed account of the alleged polling stations.
President
John Dramani Mahama whose legitimacy has been challenged by the
opposition party and the Electoral Commission were cited as respondents
in the petition.
Presenting their case before the Supreme Court
on Thursday, January 31, the petitioners prayed the court to annul
4,670,504 of the valid votes cast during the elections, which they claim
were wrongly counted.
They also presented new evidence revealing that the results at almost 12000 polling stations were miscounted.
In
an amended petition dated January, 31, 2013 filed at the Registry of
the Supreme Court, the petitioners disclosed that the initial 4709
polling stations cited in their petition had increased to 11,916 with
other 28 locations where elections were held not being part of the
26,002 polling stations created by the EC.
But Lawyer Amaliba
believes the petitioners’ new evidence may have been an afterthought,
since according to him, their (petitioners) argument is flawed.
“They
didn’t allege fraud. They didn’t allege rigging. So, you see the NPP
shifting the goal post every now and then and one would want to find out
whether they are credible at all.” he wondered.
He explained
that the new evidence is intended to delay proceedings in court, adding
that “there is no truth in the kind of evidence they said they had.”
He
recounted that the NDC; has “had oppportunity to see two of the polling
stations they (petitioners) are claiming and in those two
constituencies, there was actually nothing wrong with those numbers or
figures. So, some of the things they are claiming to be irregularities,
Some of the polling stations they are complaining about, actually there
are no problems there at all.”
He asserted that the petitioners seek to reject the court verdict and so, cast insinuations to absolve themselves.
“They
are preparing the grounds to reject the Supreme Court verdict which
will throw them out of court. They are going to come out with such
explanations as [oh] before we got there; they had doctored the figures
and so, we couldn’t present our case.”
The New Patriotic Party, he said, has only sought to throw dust in the eyes of Ghanaians in order to “bastardize the elections.” |
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