By Nana Kow Blankson
July 18, 2013
Mr Philip Addison, NPP’s lead lawyer in the on-going Supreme Court petition case has the character trait of the all-knowing attitude of the NPP folks. Typical NPP folks behave as if that they know it all! Those who have therefore seen Philip Addison in the courtroom or on television can testify that he carries himself as someone who even knows more than the judges sitting on the case.
This sagacious attitude by Mr Addison has given him the false impression that everybody should take whatever he says to the bank without cross-checking the facts. That is why Philip Addison lied big time in court that PDF files cannot be altered or edited by anyone.
And Addison who perhaps did not know what he was talking about stated emphatically during his cross-examination of Dr Afari Gyan on Monday July 15 that, the PDF files which he printed his pink sheets from were edit-proof. He said that to create the impression that the dubious pink sheets he was using was far more credible than the ones produced by the Electoral Commission (EC).
It took Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, NDC’s Lead Counsel to expose Philip Addison on Wednesday, July 16 that PDF files can easily been converted into Word document and possibly altered to suit whatever you intend to use it for.
To go a step further, I will like to state that there is software that you can download for free on the internet which you can easily use to convert PDF files into Word document. Therefore, the claim by Philip Addison on PDF files was totally false and without any foundation as lawyers will emphasise in court.
Mr Tsikata could not have exposed Mr Addison at a better time, because Mr Addison in his anxiety to prove that he has a better case, suddenly appeared in court with a barrage of pink sheets with questionable serial numbers, polling station names and codes which did not match the pink sheets of the respondents on several fronts.
And to add insult to injury, Mr Addison either falsely or ignorantly told the packed court that his so-called PDF files were edit-free, meaning that no one could make any alteration on those files. What even became very worrisome was that there were many people in court who towed the line of Philip Addison because of their limited knowledge of modern-day technology.
Therefore, it was very timely that Mr Tsikata told the court that, “My Lord, that is the fact of the matter; I mean some people do not even know that PDF documents can be transferred into Word, but it is a fact as far as technology is concerned that you can generate documents from a computer and change certain aspects of it”.
Mr Addison, who was not happy that he has been outed on his claims concerning PDF files by Mr Tsikata interjected that what Tsatsu was saying was more of a long lecture and insults which are totally unnecessary to the case.
Even though the case has gone on recess for the lawyers in the petition case to prepare their addresses, I strongly believe that the NDC must make sure to educate their members on most of the key points concerning the case, because there have been a lot of misinformation from the NPP quarters to deceive Ghanaians.
Indeed Mr Tsikata started with the crusade and others must continue with the flow since the NPP is currently claiming that their doctored pink sheets which are even photo copies are far more credible than the originals produced by the EC.
The NPP is using the airways to deceive Ghanaians into believing that they have a credible case when in fact they came to court with bogus pink sheets and in the end proved nothing incrimination.
If you hold a press conference just after you filed your petition case and claim that President Mahama stole the elections with the aid of the EC and your star witness later state at the end of his cross-examination that President Mahama did not steal any votes, then you definitely have a credibility problem.
nkowblankson@yahoo.com
