Philip Addison is counsel for petitioners
Let me begin my opinion piece with this aspect of proceedings at Wednesday’s sitting of the Supreme Court:
“Addison is belled out at this stage (meaning that he had exhausted the 30 minutes allotted to him for his oral submission).
“Judge Atuguba adjourns hearing to August 14. The judges will ask clarifications from the parties and will return 15 days later with a verdict.”
Many issues cropped up in Wednesday’s oral submissions. The oral submissions given by the various counsel produced deep insights to help me understand all the more why the New Patriotic Party NPP’s petition is nothing but a huge sand castle. I expect that sand castle to tumble down sooner than later. But this aspect of Addison’s submission is nerve-wracking and must be discussed as such.
In all honesty, I wasn’t in the least tuned up to hear from Philip Addison (counsel for the NPP petitioners) what he told the Supreme Court:
“The difference between votes for the first respondent and first petitioner (Akufo-Addo) was 325,863. This result should be taken in comparison to the outcome of votes the NPP and NDC presidential and Parliamentary candidates.
“The first Petitioner had 5,248,898 votes and his Parliamentary candidates had 5,248,882 which showed a difference of 16.
“For the first Respondent he garnered 5,574,761 as against 5,127, 641 by all his parliamentary candidates which showed a difference of 447,120. What accounted for this difference? It cannot be skirt and blouse phenomenon because the NDC are in the majority. The majority in Parliament secured 121,221 votes less than the minority. This is curious and undermines the one man one vote spelt out in the constitution.”
I will dive into this submission by Addison to prove the bad faith with which these NPP people have been acting all this while. Many elements constituting this sand castle are known, especially those related to the anomalies, miscategorizations, mislabellings, duplications, triplications, quadruplications, and what-have-you!!
Critical observation of proceedings at the Supreme Court have revealed the machinations, duplicity, and dogged mischief with which the pink sheet-based petition was couched, in the first place, and pursued with some shameless tenacity all this while.
But nothing has shocked me more than what counsel for the petitioners (Philip Addison) sought to do at Wenesday’s sitting of the Court when he made his oral presentation to conclude the arguments on why the petitioners challenged Election 2012 and why the Court should annul millions of votes to put Akufo-Addo at the Presidency.
Addison joined the petitioners in bending back to swallow the NPP’s own vomit. Not strange because it is characteristic of “political dogs” to go back for their own vomit in a vain effort to hang on to life. As my friend insists, desperate times provoke desperate acts!!
My good friends, do you see why I haven’t ceased scathingly criticizing these NPP people? They have acted all along in very bad faith and deserve nothing but concentrated contempt.
When they launched their campaign of acrimony against the EC and President Mahama/NDC, some of us wondered why they didn’t include the Parliamentary aspects of the general elections in their petition. We accused them of acting in a very bad faith; but they either remained silent on the issue or used porous arguments to attempt fending off criticism.
One argument was that the Parliamentary elections were different aspects to be taken up individual NPP Parliamentary Candidates who felt cheated. Indeed, some rushed to court but nothing has issued forth so far to prove that they have any case to be heard. A mere window-dressing for the challenge to the Presidential elections?
But in gathering evidence to pursue their self-serving agenda, the petitioners mixed pink sheets of Parliamentary elections with those for the Presidential one. It was only through vigilance that Tsatsu Tsikata and the other legal teams of the respondents exposed their mischief and duplicity.
Still bent on contaminating matters, they found ways to inflate the quantum of pink sheet exhibits and other documents that they had Photoshopped. The KPMG’s vigilance and professionalism exposed them in this area too. As we could see from Addison’s struggles to plaster reality with falsehood in his oral submission, this exposure has really hurt the petitioners.
Now, what do we see? The NPP petitioners have turned full circle to rely on material from the Parliamentary elections in a vain attempt to beef up their case concerning the Presidential elections. That was what Addison said (as quoted above).
So, now, the NPP petitioners know that they can marry the Parliamentary elections to the Presidential one? And what puerile arguments? And he is emphatic that “it cannot be skirt-and-blouse phenomenon”?
Had the petitioners done any serious checks to know the pattern of voting among their own so-called supporters, they would have been told that skirt-and-blouse voting was an integral part of what took place on December 7 and 8. Of course, given the fact that Parliamentary Candidates of the NPP had individual attributes that put them streets ahead of Akufo-Addo, why won’t the voters go for them and despise their Presidential Candidate?
Some of us heard a lot about this pattern of voting and won’t be surprised at the turn of events. But for Addison to cite this instance clearly confirms the high degree of paralyzing desperation and debilitating frustration that has hit the petitioners.
Who says that a voter who endorsed a Presidential candidate will automatically go for the Parliamentary candidate of the party of choice? Indeed, bringing this aspect into this final rhetorical manouevre is counter-productive and will hurt the petitioners’ credibility all the more. It is a clear demonstration of low-brow political thinking. These NPP people are really suffering because they are imprisoned in their own minds!!
I shall return…
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