Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, main witness of the petitioners in the ongoing Supreme Court petition challenging the validity of the declaration of John Mahama as winner of the December 7th Presidential elections, has challenged the respondents to prove that the petitioners submitted less than 11,842 polling stations in the further and better particulars submitted to the court and the respondents as had earlier been alleged by the respondents.
Dr. Bawumia was reacting to suggestions by the Counsel for 3rd Respondent that the petitioners had deliberately duplicated the pink sheets to pad up their numbers and create the impression to the court that there were more than 11,000 polling station pink sheets.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in responding to the suggestion stated that when the petitioners submitted the further and better particulars on 11,842 polling stations with details of the irregularities which were evident on the face of the pink sheets from those polling stations, the respondents came out and said that the petitioners had not submitted further and particulars on 11,842 polling stations.
Dr. Bawumia dared Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata and the other respondents to prove their earlier statements that the petitioners submitted further and better particulars on 11,842 and noted that the respondents were essentially making the same allegations with respect to the physical pink sheets submitted as they had made about the further and better particulars though had not been able to substantiate their earlier claims.
“Pursuant to the court’s directive we submitted further and better particulars with details on votes secured by all candidates from 11,842 we couldn’t have generated that list if we didn’t have the physical pink sheets. The respondents said after we submitted the further and better particulars that we didn’t submit further and better particulars on 11,842 polling stations and that we had double counted as well; till date they have not been able to challenge a single one of those polling stations and they have not been able to substantiate those allegations. Let them prove to us now those allegations. It is basically the same claims they made with our further and better particulars that they are making them about the pink sheets now”, he said.
Dr. Bawumia insisted to the court that the petitioners submitted pink sheets on 11,842 polling stations and that checks with their records had confirmed that. He noted that the petitioners were looking forward to an eventual audit which would confirm the position of the petitioners.
Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata has since the commencement of his cross examination focused on what he deems to be duplications in the exhibits submitted to suggest that the petitioners didn’t submit 11,842 different polling pink sheets.
However, Dr. Bawumia and the petitioners have insisted that they submitted 11,842 polling station pink sheets and that any duplications could only mean that there were more than 11,842 physical exhibits submitted.
So far, Counsel Tsatsu-Tsikata has stayed away from the two issues being determined by the court, that is, whether there were irregularities and whether those irregularities, if any, affected the outcome of the elections and has rather focused all his attention on supposed duplicates in the exhibits.