By Margaret Jackson
July 16, 2013
The peddling of patent falsehood by Mr Philip Addison, lead counsel of the petitioners in the on-going Supreme Court (SC) challenge to the 2012 Presidential Election results has once again caught up with him.
Mr Addison, who does not seem to have any solid evidence to back his bogus claim of electoral malpractices and irregularities, has told the court in his cross-examination of Dr Afari Gyan that substantial votes earned by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the presidential election were deducted from his overall total in certain constituencies and added to that of President John Mahama.
The NPP lead counsel specifically mentioned the Ledzokuku Constituency as one of the areas where about 15,000 votes were padded in favour of the President Mahama, the eventual winner of the 2012 polls.
But Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, the NDC lead counsel who has been following this patent falsehood being churned by Philip Addison decided to take him on in court on Tuesday July 16, when he accused Addison of peddling in patent falsehood to buttress his case.
Mr Tsikata told the court that his check at the Electoral Commission’s website does not show that the official and certified results were padded in favour of President Mahama.
He asserted that, “Counsel is not entitled to put before a witness matters which are patently false. There is a clear official record of the election; I have gone to see what was on the website of the EC myself. It is not professionally right to put to a witness a matter which plainly is incorrect; it is not professionally right".
Mr Tsikata pointedly told the court that, “For counsel to put numbers which are just, frankly, out of nowhere and say that that is the number there, respectfully that is professionally unacceptable".
To strongly buttress his point, Mr Tsikata read transcripts of his cross-examination of Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the NPP key witness, in May whereby Bawumia told the court that the petitioners have erased the allegation concerning vote paddings from their pleadings.
The NDC lead counsel, therefore, does not understand why Philip Addison who is aware that Dr Bawumia has stated in court that he had abandoned the vote padding allegation, will still go ahead and question Dr Afari Gyan on those claims.
But stubborn Philip Addison will not relent, when he claimed that but for lack of time he was still going to rely on those claims. The justices then conferred with each other and came back with a verdict of 7-2 to support Mr Tsikata that Philip Addison can no longer rely on an allegation that his own key witness, Bawumia has abandoned.
It was when Philip Addison was brought down on his knees by the justices that he withdrew the question concerning the Ledzokuku Constituency. Addison is now behaving like a drunken sailor who is trying to use every little trick under his sleeve to save his drowning case. We live to see when he will eventually end his cross-examination of Dr Afari Gyan.
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