A member of the National Reform Party, Dr. David Percy has lampooned the National Peace Council (NPC) and the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), saying they are only fronts for the opposition New Patriotic Party.
He says it will be reckless and dangerous to lull the people into thinking that those institutions, including the Ghana Bar Association, are disinterested parties in the on-going election petition case.
Speaking on Radio Gold on Monday morning, Dr. Percy, also a board member of the National Service Scheme, said last Friday’s national summit on Peace, Justice and Reforms, an initiative of the NPC, the Manhyia Palace, the Civic Forum Initiative (CFI) and the IDEG, was to further the agenda of the NPP.
“The fraternity in the peace industry – the Peace Council, IDEG, Bar Association, I see all of them as NPP fronts and no one should be fooled about their agenda. I say it will be reckless and dangerous to lull the people into thinking that these are disinterested, unbiased interlocutors, they are not,” he insisted.
He said in all public matters, it would be erroneous for anyone to assume that the adjudicating bodies can handle their mandate without their biases and interests, and it is in that light that he saw the intervention of lawyer Sam Okudjeto, the former president of the Ghana Bar Association, at the national summit.
Mr. Okudjeto had counselled, among others, that when the Supreme Court pronounces judgment in the election petition case brought against the Electoral Commission and President John Mahama, all parties must accept it as final and bring closure to the matter, adding that if the court decides that the president can no longer hold office, he must accept it because it is the only way we can have peace in the country.
But Dr. Percy faulted Mr. Okudjeto’s claim that when the Supreme Court pronounces verdict, it would be the end of the case and that no side would be entitled to a review, saying the claim was false and portrayed him as someone who did not know the laws of Ghana because provision is made for a review application.
“But the other thing is this, in all public matters it is completely erroneous to give the impression that people can be impartial, and I must declare my bias right away, that there is bias in every public matter and we must not fool the people into thinking that there is impartiality. The nine justices of the Supreme Court panel, I’m sure you know that every one of them voted in the elections, so they have their biases, they have their interests. You must not fool the people into thinking that people can determine these things free of interest and bias.”
Dr. Percy said like the Accra summit, the NPP in pursuit of its ‘all die be die’, ‘win at all cost’ and ‘no result acceptable unless a win’ mantras ahead of the 2012 election, threw overboard a similar peace pact signed in Kumasi.
He said when the result of the election did not favour them, they alleged theft and fraud and started a campaign to incite a breakdown of law and order, failing which, thanks to the security forces who managed the situation so well, they proceeded to court on the basis of flimsy technicalities all in the bid to win power.
“They don’t go to court with the charges of theft and fraud, they go to court on flimsy technicalities that the votes in non-Akan electoral areas, largely, be annulled… Now if this is not subversion and a cocktail for inciting civil war, I can’t find one on this planet. And that is what we are faced with. The only decent thing that they can do is to retire their insurgency… And that is the context in which I see this peace summit.”
Written by Isaac Yeboah/Graphic.com.gh / Ghana