Asiedu Nketia performed abysmally at Supreme Court - Atik Mohammed

A policy analyst of the People's National Convention (PNC), Atik Mohammed has defused commendations on the key witness for the first and third respondents in the ongoing election petition, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, stating that he performed abysmally and rather helped to strengthen the petitioners case.

According to him, Mr. Asiedu Nketia who is also known as General Mosquito didn’t help his side in the kind of responses he gave to the questions posed to him by lead Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia, while under cross examination yesterday, refuted claims that he trumpeted the supposed mantra of the Electoral Commission “No Verification, No Vote” which was intended to govern the electoral process during the 2012 general polls.

But he was caught on tape giving support to the wide-held proclamation and admitting some issues he earlier denied while in the witness box.

The NDC General Secretary was captured on tape explaining the electoral processes in an interview with Citi FM’s Richard Sky on the station’s “Point Blank” program last year.

During a playback of the tape in the Supreme Court, he said “Let somebody come out to say that, at this particular polling station, there was voting without biometric verification and that those polling stations must be annulled. We agreed at IPAC level that there is no way voting should take place without biometric verification and these were all agreed before we went into the election. So it is surprising that any political party would not inform its agents or the electoral commission would not inform its officials, and that would happen.”

“If something happens that should not have happened according to the electoral law, the results if cancelled and taken out of the constituency tally would affect everybody equally because nobody would know who has cast his ballot there and in much the same way if you open the ballot box and you count and the number of votes inside the ballot box are found to be in excess of the number that actually voted, or if the votes there are in excess of the number of registered voters at the polling station, that is automatic cancellation.”

Atik Mohammed, speaking in an interview with Peacefmonline.com, was of the view that Mr. Asiedu Nketia failed in impressing his Counsel and the respondents, and held: “his responses to the questions indicated he was absolutely confused.”

“His bad performance” he asserted, “went to strengthen the case of the petitioners. And it also became clear that there is a difference between commentary outside the witness box and when you are indeed in the witness box. And you could see from the faces of his lawyers they were very disappointed with his performance and that Asiedu Nketia who they thought was going to be exceptional rather turned out to be somebody helping the petitioners in building a stronger case.”

To him, he (Asiedu Nketia) “no longer was on top of the issues as he’s purported before he mounted witness box” and could not stand the pressure from the petitioners’ Counsel.

He added that his posture in the witness box on Wednesday proved that he was not in full grasp of the facts of the case.

“The pressure from the Counsel actually got him to do the kind of things he did and to give the type of responses he gave and let nobody say it was because he was nervous…He seemed to be running away from the facts”, so, “it was just narration of stories of very minimal relevance” Asiedu Nketia gave before the court.