NDC, John Mahama’s collated figures not relevant to court petition – Sammy Gyamfi

National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has said that the petitioner in the 2020 Election Petition before the Supreme Court, John Mahama, does not need to provide his own collated figures of the 2020 Presidential Election, explaining that he does not need the figures to prove that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa’s declaration of the presidential results on December 9, 2020, is unconstitutional and invalid.

For Sammy Gyamfi, John Mahama’s goal in court is to demonstrate that relying on the figures provided by the Electoral Commission (EC), no presidential candidate won the 2020 elections not to provide alternative figures to the effect that John Mahama won.

His comment comes following the inability of Johnson Asiedu Nketia, one of John Mahama’s witnesses in Court, to provide the collated figures done by the NDC itself when the Court asked for it.

The NDC and Mr Asiedu Nketiah have been criticised by many for being unable to provide their own collated figures for the presidential results of the 2020 General Elections. But Mr Gyamfi contends that figures of the NDC have no bearing on the petition by the Court:

“…the petitioner in the present case, John Mahama is not asking the Supreme Court to annul votes and declare him President-elect on the basis of the resultant outcome. He is simply telling the court that per the figures contained in the declaration of the Chairperson of the EC and Returning Officer of the 2020 Presidential elections, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensah, none of the 12 candidates in the 2020 Presidential elections attained more than 50% of the total valid votes cast as required by Article 63(3) of the 1992 constitution, hence the declaration of candidate Akufo-Addo as President-elect is unconstitutional.

Therefore to my mind, John Mahama doesn’t need his own collated figures to illustrate or prove his claim that Jean Mensah’s declaration is unconstitutional and invalid. Rather, he needs the figures contained in the declaration of Jean Mensah to illustrate and prove his case, which is precisely what he is doing in court.

Why then is he being asked to present his own collated figures to the Supreme Court, before he can challenge the constitutionality/validity of the 2020 Presidential results declared by Jean Mensah as per Jean Mensah’s own figures?” Mr Gyamfi queried.

He then wondered how the NDC could have collated its own results given the flawed nature of the documents from which the collation was supposed to be done.

“If I may ask, how can anyone expect the NDC to do any true and proper collation of results on the basis of polling station pink sheets and constituency summary results sheets that contain several patent arithmetic errors and arrive at any accurate outcome? I don’t get it!” He lashed out.