It is not too late for former President John Mahama to follow the 2013 example of President Nana Akufo-Addo (then-petitioner) in the country’s first election petition, when the latter congratulated the former (then-President), after the Supreme Court affirmed the Electoral Commission’s declared presidential results, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said.
“Instead”, it noted, “John Mahama would rather hold a press conference to unleash invectives and unprovoked attacks on the judiciary and the election management body much to the chagrin of democratic observers and the generality of the Ghanaian people. The gravamen of his attacks on these two important state institutions was that the Supreme Court had shielded the chairperson of the commission from testifying in court”, the NPP said in a statement signed by General Secretary John Boadu.
Following the court’s affirmation, in its judgment, of the 7 December 2020 presidential results as declared by the Electoral Commission judgment, Mr Mahama addressed the media and said he disagreed. He also accused the court of having aided the EC Chairperson “to avoid explaining to the good people of Ghana from her own testimony, under oath in a properly constituted court of law, the errors she herself admits to have committed in the declaration of the 2020 presidential election results”.
Mr Mahama said: “Whatever the reasons for not allowing Mrs. Jean Mensa to testify or answer any questions, it leaves an embarrassing stain, not only on our justice delivery system but also on the nation’s electoral system”, adding: “The Supreme Court has given its verdict, but the national debate on the dismal state of our democracy and the increasing weakness of its institutions has only just begun. It is time we all come together to confront those who seek to destroy the very democratic system that brought them into office. It is our patriotic duty to do so”.
The NPP said: “These harsh words and imputations coming from John Mahama, a former President of the Republic, still baffles many, particularly because the Supreme Court, as has been explained, has only stuck to the time-tested principle of the common law practice and for that matter, the position of our legal system on civil litigation, that, you win in court based on the strength of your own case and not based on the supposed weaknesses of your opponent’s case”.
The party noted: “Indeed, the nation’s Supreme Court once held that it would be madness to allow a party depend on his opponent in order to prove his case. John Mahama certainly shouldn’t expect the Supreme Court of Ghana to do what it clearly said would amount to madness”.
“It would also be recalled that John Mahama stated in 2013 that: ‘The Courts cannot give you what the people have not given you’. We agreed with him then, and we still do agree with him today on this profound statement”.
“Well, John Mahama may have lost an opportunity to repeat the enviable feat achieved by President Akufo-Addo in 2012 and get his name written in the history books of consummate and patriotic democrats, but it is certainly not too late for him to right the wrong. It is not too late for John Mahama to come to terms with his fate and accept the verdict of the nation’s Apex Court even if he disagrees with the judgment”.
“It is not too late for John Mahama to call H.E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, whose emphatic 2020 election victory has been affirmed by the Supreme Court, to congratulate him. It is on account of this that the NPP is calling on the former President, John Dramani Mahama, to do the needful in the collective interest of our nation”.
source: Class FM
