John Mahama
Those who predicted a different reaction from former President John Mahama after the election petition verdict got it wrong.
Some of us betted on a remark full of innuendos and subtle attack on the judiciary. We were proven right at the end of the rather relative lengthy reaction. It was unlike how then candidate Akufo-Addo reacted when the Justice Atuguba-led judicial panel handed down the verdict in 2013.
The NPP candidate and petitioner did not agree with the judgment as much as some of the judges who heard the petition, but he accepted it. Those representing the Supreme Court had spoken and it was final.
The petitioner in this latest instance even after agreeing to accept the verdict of the court has doubtlessly reneged on the promise he made, his post-verdict remarks saying it all.
It is amazing that the petitioner did not see anything bizarre with his star witness Johnson Asiedu Nketia and chose rather to describe the panel’s summary of the NDC General Secretary as a mutilation of his theatre-like performance when he was under cross-examination. He deliberately avoided the ‘fanciful evidence’ of the others.
We are at a loss as to what the former President was alluding to when he referred to the commencement of a public discourse on the management of democracy vis a vis the election petition in the country. Provided that would not entail the burning of tyres and rowdy demonstrations as he directed in the pre-Supreme Court sessions, nobody would have problems with that.
Of course Ghanaians like their counterparts elsewhere, especially the US, have been in an endless discussion about democracy and how to better it.
Such discussions while they are in the interest of the advancement of democracy should be bereft of acrimony and subtle efforts at inciting the public against some institutions of state such as the judiciary and the elections management body.
The petitioner missed a rare opportunity to repair his damaged image in the eyes of the public.
Many more Ghanaians voted against the Mahama-led NDC at the polls and for the former President to seek to create the impression that his party is the most preferred is to throw a lie into the ring as he did when he told his party supporters that he won the polls. Of course as it turned out in court, that stance was varied when he said both parties did not cross the 50 plus threshold.
Describing the court proceedings as steeped in shenanigans is most unfortunate, especially coming from a former President who should know better the import of such outlandish remarks. He reminds us about a certain former President who still tells his supporters that he won the polls even when that is far from the truth.
By the time the hearing ended, we were torn between regarding whether or not the petition was against the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) or over the electoral figures.
What the former President meant when he said the EC Chairperson was protected by a wall of fire was that the justices of the apex court prevented the petitioner’s legal team from dragging her into the witness box. That also meant that a legal infraction was being committed. If this is not an indictment on the integrity of the apex court, we do not know what else is.
The former President ignored the counsel not to go to court from some of his friends because as he put it, “we are in unusual times.” We do not know whether he was referring to the COVID-19 times or that the apex court as currently constituted cannot deliver justice.
Ghanaians watched the proceedings and for those of them with little or no knowledge of court matters, they could not predict erroneously the outcome of the case. When a star witness fidgets with a calculator in court the way this one did, anything different from the dismissal would have boggled the mind.
We are mindful about the unacceptability of using harsh words on a former President even if his conduct lists so worryingly as under the subject under review.