Tsatsu To Bloody Akufo Addo’s Nose Again!

The NPP’s nemesis, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, has ridiculed the petition before the Supreme Court in the name of NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo, his Running Mate, Mahamadou Bawulina and party National Chairman, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey calling for the annulment of the results of the December 7, 2012 Presidential elections as declared by the Electoral Commission and declares Akufo-Addo as winner.

“The petition is factually empty, legally pathetic, poor in arithmetic and poorer in logic” he told members of the National Executive Committee of the NDC at their meeting yesterday.


Tsatsu Tsikata, a legal luminary, as well as a finance and energy expert together with a Former Chief of Staff, Nana Ato Dadzie, is leading the NDC’s legal team in the matter of the NPP’s petition before the Supreme Court.


Some NPP apparatchiks who hitherto had been confident that their party will win the case are reported to develop cold feet at news that Tsatsu Tsikata is leading the NDC’s legal team in the matter.


Their apprehension is not without foundation. The NPP’s legal team in the matter is being led by its defeated flag-bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, the same man whose nose Tsatsu “bloodied” in the matter of the Attorney-General Vs. Tstatsu Tsikata in 2002.


Then as Attorney-General, Akufo- Addo proved to be no match for Tsatsu to the extent that after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favour of Tsatsu in the matter of the legality of the Fast Track Court, many Ghanaians began to call for the resignation or dismissal of Akuffo- Addo as the Attorney-General. In the long run, Kufuor had no choice than to remove him from that position and appoint him Foreign Minister.


Akufo-Addo’s abysmal performance in that case is explainable. Coming against a man who wrote his arguments for him in the matter of the Republic Vrs. Agama, Akufo-Addo knew that he will be no match for Tsatsu. Thus, jittery, he committed blunders even first year university students will not commit.

Summerising Akufo-Addo’s abysmal performance in the case in their March 11, 2002 edition, the ‘ Ghanaians Voice’ newspaper, said it wishes “… to bring the attention of readers to the following procedural blunders that have been committed by the A-G, which has caused the government such an embarrassment if not total humiliation.


“First: The summons which ordered Tsatsu's appearance before the FTC was issued in the name of the President and not the Republic. How could it be forgotten that by the Courts Act, justice must be exercised in the name of the Republic and not the President? Did the A-G's office not know that by summoning Tsatsu in the name of the President, the independence of the judiciary was likely to be compromised? How come that this could not be detected by the whole machinery of the office the A-G? Was the A-G expecting us to believe him when he said that this error could not be traced to his office?


“Second: There has been inconsistency in the charges, which have been preferred against Tsatsu Tsikata. That is, charges against Tsatsu Tsikata have been changed for more than five times.


“It started with a charge of (i) "willfully causing financial loss to the state," then to a charge of (ii) intentionally causing loss to public property", again to (iii) "carelessly causing loss to public property" and later changed at the Fast Track Court (FTC) for (iv) "causing financial loss to the state" and once again changed to (v) "willfully causing Financial loss to the state" before the FTC that has now been declared unconstitutional.


“Third: The forum for trial has also been changed from the Circuit Court to the "illegal" Fast Track Court and now to a 'normal High Court".


“Fourth: That legal luminaries like the A-G and his Deputy could not contemplate the possibility of somebody challenging the constitutionality of the FTC's beats our imagination since as in law as in life all things are possible'.

“Finally, the ‘Voice’ thinks this is the mother of all the blunders - the inability of the prosecution to detect that the charge, which had been preferred against Tsatsu was illegal! The court in its ruling said that the law dealing with the offence allegedly committed by Mr Tsatsu came into force on July 6, 1993, but the statement of offence said that Mr Tsikata committed the act "in or about February 1993.


“Listen to the trial judge "I must tell the Director of Public Prosecutions that, our laws are stable and under no stretch of imagination could in or about February mean July."


“What a shattering disgrace! No doubt a desperate and a last-minute request by the DPP to make an amendment to the charge, just before the court’s ruling was not entertained by the court.


“It is in the light of the above that the paper is of the view that the only thing which must be done to save President Kufuor's government from receiving more legal blows and such technical knock-outs is to move Nana Akufo-Addo and his deputy from that place if they do not see the need to resign honourably”


If news that Tsatsu is leading the NDC’s legal team in the matter before the Supreme Court has led to NPP apparatchiks panicking, then his assertion before the NEC of the NDC that “the (NPP’s) petition is factually empty, legally pathetic, poor in arithmetic and poorer in logic” is cold comfort for Akufo Addo himself. For the second time, the defeated NPP flag-bearer’s nose is set to be “bloodied” by the very man who “bloodied” it the first time – the man he and the then President Kufuor hunted and haunted and almost killed when they were the monarchs of all they can survey in Ghana politics for eight years.