Alfred Tuah-Yeboah
THE PRESIDENT of the Ghana Bar Association responsible for Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, has said the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) will disappoint its supporters if the party fails to go to court over claims that it won the general election and the verdict has been taken from them.
He said after raising the hopes of its rank and file that it had been shortchanged, it would be a disappointment if the party’s leadership failed to present the so-called evidence needed to mount a legal challenge at the Supreme Court.
Lawyer Tuah Yeboah, who is also the Chairman of the Legal Committee of the NPP in BA, said yesterday on ‘SERVICE RADIO’ in Sunyani that “apart from the court, there is nowhere the issues can be settled,” adding “If the NDC has evidence that it won the election, it should go to court.”
The lawyer was disappointed in a statement purported to have been made by a member of the NDC legal team, Abraham Amaliba, to the effect that President Akufo-Addo after assumption of office made several appointments to the Bench so the NDC would not get justice when it went to the court.
“It is not about appointments; it is about rules and regulations. The court is not about speculation but hard-core facts. The NDC has 21 days to go to court after the results have been gazetted. If it doesn’t prepare well, it will come to nothing, nobody can change the EC figures unless the court,” he said, adding, “maybe Amaliba is one of the lawyers who when he loses a case will tell his client the judge took bribe. You have to do thorough research and come out with the facts.”
He said “in 2013, it took the court eight months to determine a petition brought by then candidate Akufo-Addo, but now the rules have changed and it will only take 42 days,” he advised the NDC.
He equally advised Joe Danquah, the NPP parliamentary candidate for the Banda Constituency, whose result was swapped for the NDC’s Ahmed Ibrahim to be declared winner, to go to the high court, and asked the court to look at the pink sheets and notice of polls and make a determination.
“But before the court will listen to you, you need to pay what we call security of cost; you don’t need to waste anybody’s time. That is why we have the saying ‘if you are an idiot you can’t go to court,’” he said.
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani