Mahama election petition fit for IPAC not Supreme Court – Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante

Former President John Dramani Mahama should have taken his complaints concerning the 2020 polls to an Inter-party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting rather than the Supreme Court according to Nana Adjoa Adobea Asante.

Being one of the lawyers of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the second respondent in the ongoing election petition, Miss Adobea Asante said:

“We believe that this petition does not disclose any reasonable cause of action and does not meet the article 64 threshold for bringing an election petition."

Ms. Asante told Eugene Bawelle on ClassFM’s current affairs program ‘The Watchdog’ on Saturday, 6 February 2021 that:

“The complaints that have been encompassed in this election petition, to be honest, are not one that should be brought to the Supreme Court. I would have suggested that the complaints should have been made at an IPAC meeting after the election; so at an IPAC meeting, then these complaints could have been made because, in actual fact, they do not, in any way, materially affect the outcome of the election”

She also noted that the testimony of Mr. Mahama’s third witness, Mr. Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, was of no material relevance to the petition.

In her view, just as their statement “exposed” the first and second witnesses of Mr Mahama, NDC General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia, and Dr. Michael Kpessa-Whyte, they will also expose Mr. Mettle-Nunoo during the next cross-examination on Monday, 8 February 2020.

“We shall certainly expose the loopholes and the fact that it is highly likely untrue than true, the testimony of the witness”, Ms Adobea Asante added.

At the last hearing on Friday, 5 February, the court struck out five paragraphs from the 32-paragraph statement of Mr Mettle-Nunoo.