General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) Johnson Asiedu Nketia has accused the petitioners in the ongoing election fraud case of attempting to “deceive the Supreme Court”.
Mr Asiedu Nketia was making reference to key witness, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s admission at the hearing on Thursday April 18, 2013 that he manually duplicated the over 11,000 pink sheets tendered in evidence to the court, although he insisted he never used the duplicated sheets in his final analysis by which he and his party are accusing the Electoral Commission (EC) of manipulating the results in favour of the NDC.
However Mr Asiedu Nketia said: “The intention [of the duplication] was to deceive the court”.
Mr Asiedu Nketia who spoke to the media after the hearing also accused the petitioners of fraud by claiming that: “Some of the duplicated sheets [had] different signatures of the electoral officials”.
He said Thursday’s hearing exposed the ill-intentions of the petitioners and the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), a situation, which he noted amplified the fortunes of the respondents in the case.
“For every passing day, the case of the NPP crumbles further,” he said, adding that the petitioners’ case was “much ado about nothing and a storm in a tea pot”.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia admitted to the Supreme Court during his cross examination by the president’s Lawyer, Tony Lithur that he indeed submitted to the court pink sheets which fell under more than one of the four main categories of alleged electoral malpractice.
He said the four main categorised areas bordered on alleged statutory violation, malpractice, irregularities and omissions.
They included over voting, unsigned pink sheets, voting without biometric verifications and duplication of serial numbers on pink sheets.
In his evidence in chief led by the petitioners’ lawyer Philip Addison, Dr Bawumia insisted he never used any of the over 11,000 pink sheets in contention twice in his analysis as far as the four categories of alleged omissions, statutory violations, irregularities and malpractices are concerned.
Under cross examination however, Dr Bawumia repetitively admitted some of the pink sheets his team had tendered in evidence were categorised under different classes of alleged malpractice, irregularities and omission.
The petitioners, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo (1st petitioner), his running mate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia (2nd petitioner) and the party Chairman, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey (3rd petitioner) accuse the governing National Democratic Congress of colluding with the Electoral Commission (2nd Respondent) to manipulate the December 7 and 8, 2012 elections.
They are praying the court to annul 4,670,504 votes and declare the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as the winner.
They claim Nana Akufo-Addo won the elections by 59.69 per cent while President Mahama polled 39.1 per cent.
They are, therefore, challenging the EC’s declaration of President Mahama as winner of the presidential polls with 50.70 per cent.
The NPP’s General Secretary Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, however, told Journalists that Dr Bawumia “dazzled and got the NDC dazed” at Thursday’s hearing.
He accused the petitioners’ lawyers of behaving like disappointed students who got swerved by an examination question which they had gotten hint of aforetime.
The case has been adjourned to Monday April 22, 2013.