Fear grips NDC over Election Petition

There seems to be some level of anxiety in the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the possible outcome of the election petition before the Supreme Court.

It has consequently established a group with the name ‘Coalition of Ghanaian Voters’ (COGVO) seeking to pre-empt the outcome of the case by rubbishing the concerns of the petitioners, namely: Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey.

At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Dr Clement Apaak, Convenor of the group, which also has the likes of Madam Akua Donkor, Akwasi Addei (Odike) and Kofi Apaloo, all failed presidential hopefuls as members, noted “the current effort seeking to annul the votes of 4.6million Ghanaians is in bad faith.”

Other members of the group included lawyer Chris Ackumey and failed NDC parliamentary candidate for the Okaikoi North constituency, Andrew Okaikoi.

Although they stressed the belief that it was important, for the sake of peace, unity and stability, to allow the court to hear the petition and to pronounce judgment, the group said “the right to vote is absolute and that the vote of one citizen, let alone 4.6million should not be annulled on the basis of selective analysis and subjective definitions.”

Dr Apaak wondered if it would be fair to seek to void the votes of citizens on the basis of what he described as ‘’supposed irregularities and violations which they cannot be held accountable for’’.

This, he said, was because it was the allegation of votes having been padded for the first respondent in the case, President John Dramani Mahama, which was the pretext for which he referred to as the“ futile attempt to prevent the Electoral Commissioner from declaring the results of the Presidential poll on December 9th 2012.”

As far as he and his colleague members of the group were concerned “no mention of padding and reduction has been made in the court petition hearing so far”, wondering why the places where the said padding and reduction were claimed to have occurred had not been mentioned since the beginning of the case, claiming “yet, these wild claims lured honourable men and women into engaging in the dishonourable act of holding up sheets with the word ‘stealers’ embossed on them in the honourable House.”

Dr Apaak and his colleagues have since asked Ghanaians and the court to disregard the concerns of the petitioners since in their opinion ‘they have no case’.

The event was put together by Emmanuel Saint Osei and Alhaji Mohammed Naziru who until recently were members of the Friends of Nana Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR).