Pink-Sheet Counting: Time Is Of The Essence

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

I have already discussed this issue, but perhaps I need to reprise the same for the benefit of the apparently tone-deaf supporters of the respondents of the 2012 presidential election petition brought before Ghana's Supreme Court by the presidential candidate of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), his running-mate and the chairman of the NPP.

What I have critically observed is that any competent and legitimately constituted court of any land or polity, Ghana included, would not take certified custody of forensic evidence presented by the petitioners of a lawsuit brought before it, publicly and officially acknowledge the fact of having received the same, and then two long weeks later, curiously pressured by counsel for the respondents to the aforesaid petition, demand a recounting of the same forensic evidence that the court had originally agreed to be of the exact quantity the petitioners claimed to have submitted.

Among the Akan, we have a saying that: "One does not pluck the feathers of a bird, present the deplumed bird to an elder and then ask her/him to identify the same bird." That, of course, constitutes an inexcusable affront to the intelligence of the adult so slighted. And in the olden days, the insolent youthful upstart who did that could be severely punished. And it is the foregoing judicial "riddle" that moral reprobates and cynics like Mr. Alexander Segbefia, the former deputy chief-of-staff for the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, and a prominent member of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), ought to be worrying themselves about (See "Throw Out NPP's Case If... - Segbefia" Radioxyzonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 6/16/13).

For starters, going into the KPMG recounting of the pink sheets, the "golden" keys holding the secret to the number of registered Ghanaian voters who actually exercised their right of franchise, Mr. Tsatsu "The Thief" Tsikata, counsel for the third respondent, or the National Democratic Congress, insisted that, indeed, only approximately 8,000 pink sheets had been availed the NDC by petitioners representing the NPP.

The latter had, of course, noted that they had submitted 11,842 pink sheets. What bears emphasizing here, though, is the fact that a KPMG recount pegged the figure of pink sheets submitted to the Registrar of the Supreme Court at 13, 900, a whopping 2,058 pink sheets in excess of the officially stated number submitted by Messrs. Akufo-Addo, Bawumia and Obetsebi-Lamptey. What this, in essence, means is that the petitioners had positively erred on the side of "overage," though the felonious Mr. Tsakata would characteristically have the rest of the world believe that, somehow, the petitioners had squirreled additional pink sheets into the Supreme Court Registry. With whose help, the NDC counsel has yet to reveal.

The more damning error would have been on the side of short-changing the court, which would literally have been tantamount to an unpardonable act of judicial contempt. Now, having been flat-out beaten at their own game, the respondents then come up with the equally quizzical tack of having pink sheet copies delivered to the presiding judge, Justice William Atuguba, audited by KPMG. This decision, mind the dear reader, comes nearly one month after the forensic exhibits have been tendered in evidence by the petitioners and promptly accepted as such by the Atuguba Court.

Predictably, now we are being told that pink sheets in the personal custody of the presiding judge number only about 9,857 or about 1,985 pink sheets short of the original number officially submitted and accepted as such. It is also palpably clear where the ideological sentiments of Justice Atuguba are located. In other words, the best judge of the latest twist in the Akufo-Addo Revolution is the dear reader her-/himself.

At any rate, the clear motive of Mr. Segbefia's call for the Atuguba-presided court to throw out the NPP petition is far less based on the quality of the evidence presented and/or facts proven or unproven, for that matter, but rather merely because Mr. Segbefia and his ilk among the ranks of the NDC want to simply get away with electoral murder, so to say. And this is primarily the reason why Mr. Segbefia would rather have the petitioners' suit summarily quashed, with what may be aptly termed a "Sissyphean Monkey Wrench" thrown into their path by the august Supreme Court.

In sum, Mr. Segbefia mischievously would have the steadily moving clock of the Akufo-Addo Revolution reset to Zero Hours GMT, so as to enable the illegitimately constituted Mahama government buy just enough time to enjoy a free ride until 2016. Fat chance, I say! Praise God and pass the ammunition! We are fed up with thirty years of NDC reign-of-terror!

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Department of English

Nassau Community College of SUNY

Garden City, New York

June 16, 2013

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

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