Goal post keeps shifting for Mahama and his lawyers – Gary Nimako

Gary Nimako Marfo, a member of the NPP’s legal team has said petitioners in the 2021 election petition hearing keep shifting the goal post with a view to unduly delay the court processes.

According to him, the almost daily request for new information by lawyers for the petitioner – John Dramani Mahama – points to the fact that they were pursuing a delay strategy.

Nimako made the submission on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo morning show. He expressed concern over the petitioners making a belated request for pink sheets from the EC, which documents he averred that they should have duplicates of, as per electoral laws.

“The foundation of your case should be pink sheets. If you don’t have them, on what basis are you claiming to have issues with the outcome of the vote? How do you know that someone did not get the 50% plus one threshold?

“The goal post keeps shifting. As at the time they left the court (January 19), they could not tell the panel that they intend even to file any process to request for any documents from the EC. From the court, they went straight to do that.

“So from behind, you can see clearly that the matter before the courts is such that Mr. Mahama and his team are not interested in the court to get to the substance of the matter,” he added.

He added that it was important for both parties to work together through the pre-trial stage to enable the courts to give directions for witness statements to be filed to allow for the court to set a date for the hearing of the substantive hearing.

The court entered day three of hearing. The panel gave directions on case management and set a date of January 26 for hearing of the petition.