UNCERTAINTY HANGS OVER MAHAMA - GENERAL MOSQUITO

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Monday, July 15, 2013

The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has conceded that the prolonged Presidential Election Petition currently at the Supreme Court “leaves a cloud of uncertainty” over the presidency of John Dramani Mahama.

According to NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, there appears to be an effort on the part of the petitioners to “delay the case and have the cloud of uncertainty continue over the presidency of the 1^st respondent so as to disable him from pursuing the mandate that he has received from the people of Ghana.”

This was contained in an affidavit in opposition deposed to by the NDC General Secretary when the NDC as 3^rd respondent together with President Mahama, 1^st respondent and the Electoral Commission (EC) 2^nd respondent in the petition tried to block the petitioners from recalling KPMG to reconsider some of the issues it did not capture in its report of the auditing of pink sheets filed by the petitioners with the court.

“For the Petitioners who seek, at all costs, to have the court find fault with the conduct of the election after their own representative declared it as the cleanest-and most transparent election in the history of the country and despite the similar conclusion reached by local and international observers, there appears to be an effort to delay the case and have the cloud of uncertainty continue over the Presidency of 1^st Respondent so as to disable him from pursuing the mandate, that he has received from the people of Ghana”.

The petitioners’ application was dismissed by the nine-member justices hearing the proceedings but the highest court directed that the petitioners were at liberty to prepare a list of 1,545 polling stations which they insist KPMG failed to consider as part of the report submitted to the court and use it in the cross-examination of Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the EC.

According to Mr. Asiedu-Nketiah aka General Mosquito, “it has become evident that the petitioners are seeking to delay the resolution of the petition and leave a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the nation,” and went ahead to state that “their (petitioners) case is being shown to be entirely without merit.”

“The continuing distraction that will be caused by the significant delay that would result from the grant of this application would not just be to the prejudice and detriment of 3^rd respondent (NDC) but would be to the prejudice and detriment of the nation at large,” he said.

He had averred that petitioners are “at all cost” trying to “find fault with the conduct of the election” after their (petitioners) own representatives declared to exercise to be the most transparent and cleanest in the history of Ghana.

The NDC General Secretary said since the petition commenced, “the petitioners have sought to evade their responsibility of specifying” the polling stations filed in the process and added that the determination of the 8,675 unique polling station codes from the total count was clearly by the referee.

He averred that “there is nothing incomplete about the evidence on this figure and its derivation from the total number of sheets counted.”

The admission of the NDC general secretary that the election petition is having a toll on the country goes contrary to the position of President Mahama who said he fine with it.

.“It doesn’t cause me sleepless night,” he told Kweku Sintim-Misa known as KSM on Thank God It’s Friday on Metro TV, adding that it was part of Ghana’s democracy.