Election Petition: Ayine fires Gabby over ‘unethical’ comment

A former Deputy Attorney General Dr Dominic Ayine has chastised private legal practitioner and member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Gabby Otchere-Darko for prophesying that the Supreme Court will dismiss the election petition brought before it by the Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama.

The NDC and Mr Mahama on Wednesday December 30 filed a petition at the apex court which seeks, among other things, a rerun of the presidential elections, asking the Court for an order to restrain Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Second Respondent, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from holding himself out as president-elect.

But the former Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Mr Otchere-Darko posted on his Facebook page that as part of his prophecies for the year 2021 “The Supreme Court will rule that the petitioner could not provide any material evidence, in terms of actual numbers, to justify the run-off he is seeking against either Jean Mensa or Akufo-Addo.”

Speaking on the Key Points programme hosted by Abena Tabi on TV3 Saturday January 2, Dr Ayine who is also Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga East said “Mr Gabby Otchere-Darko posted on Facebook his prophecies for 2021, and one of the prophecies is that that the Supreme Court will dismiss the petition on the basis that the petitioner does not have sufficient evidence to prove his petition.

“Now, I found that really disturbing coming from a lawyer, owner of a prominent law firm that does a lot of transactions for the government.

“I think it is unbecoming, it is unethical. Because, supposing, for the sake of argument, the Supreme Court actually comes down the way he has predicted, what do you think people are going to say?

“People may even begin to think that the judgment was being written at the time that he was saying those things.

“We need to take our constitutional democracy very seriously and you know, the whole idea of lawyers, running to town with a lot of stuff. For instance a lecturer at the GIMPA law school one Mr Darko went to town writing about the petition. We have to be very circumspect.”