Former President John Mahama and Jean Mensa
Former President John Mahama is still irking over the decision by the Supreme Court to reject his request that would have brought Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson, Mrs. Jean Mensa to testify in the petition he filed to challenge the 2020 Presidential Election Results declaration.
Mr. Mahama went to court making allegations against the EC without submitting the needed documents to back his claims, and rather asked the court to invite the commission he accused, to come and explain its action.
The court rejected the request, and Mr. Mahama has since not forgiven the judges and the commission for the decision.
Addressing the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs yesterday as part of what he calls his ‘Thank You’ tour, Mr. Mahama said “Despite the fact that the elections were not declared for us, we went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court gave its ruling against us and so in my address to the nation I accepted the ruling of the court even though we were not too happy.
“I think that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done, and so the demands we made during the court hearing, one, to let the Electoral Commission give access to information which was turned down.”
He said “to ask the Electoral Commission some questions that are called interrogatories such as is done in normal court proceedings, that was also turned down and indeed the most injurious one to our democracy, to let the person responsible for elections in this country that has been constitutionally mandated stand in the witness box and testify to the work she did, was also turned down.”
“And so, we accepted the verdict but we disagreed with a lot of things that took place in that court. But in the interest of peace of the country we accept by reason of that court, it means that the recognised President of the country is Nana Akufo-Addo and we all respect him as our president. I will continue to say that even though we disagreed with processes of the elections, we disagreed with some of the process of the court hearing, the reality of the fact is that he is our president.”
Hard Times
The former President said that times are hard for Ghanaians under the Akufo-Addo-led NPP administration.
“Fuel costs are rising, every day the pump prices go up,” he said, adding “this year many unions are unhappy with the negotiations that took place where a paltry 4 per cent was given to them.”
He stated that “even though you do free SHS you have no jobs for them to do when they come out. Times are hard and people are suffering, food prices are going up. Every day the prices are increasing,” adding “these are things that are not going on well and I believe Nananom (Chiefs) will speak about it.”