President Nana Akufo-Addo
President Akufo-Addo has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss an application for stay of proceedings filed by ex-President John Dramani Mahama, who has petitioned the apex court to overturn the result of the country’s presidential election held last year.
The relatively peaceful election on December 7 saw incumbent President Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) winning with 51.59% of the vote ahead of his main challenger, former President John Mahama of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), who received 47.37% as declared by the Electoral Commission (EC).
But Mr. Mahama failed to concede as normally done by defeated candidates, and went ahead to petition the Supreme Court to overturn the results and order a re-run.
While the court was hearing the petition, lawyers of ex-President Mahama filed 12 interrogatories directed at the EC, which the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision dismissed them, saying the application should be based on relevance and in line with C.I. 99.
Dissatisfied by that, Mr. Mahama again filed a motion for review of 12 questions that was unanimously dismissed by the court, which motion President Akufo-Addo, who is the second respondent, was opposing.
He stated, in a response through his lawyers, that he opposed the motion for stay of proceedings and argued that there was no merit in the application for “stay of proceedings.”
For him, the interrogatories to be served on the EC Chairperson, Jean Mensa, were “fishing interrogatories,” and added that the review had no absolute “chance of success and therefore hardly be a basis for seeking to stay proceedings in a court pending the disposal of same.”
President Akufo-Addo contended that the review application and other requests by the petitioner were calculated to frustrate the determination of the petition, pointing out that “it is untenable for the petitioner, having filed as far back as December 30, 2020 to claim in January 2021 that he is unable to file his witness statement without the first respondent’s (EC’s) response to his request to admit facts and notice to inspect documents.
“Indeed the substance of the petitioner’s witness statements should have been known to him prior to filing the petition,” the second respondent argued.