By Margaret Jackson
April 24, 2013
Wednesday April 23, 2013 will forever be remembered by all die-hard NPP members. It was the day that Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the past NPP Vice Presidential Candidate who is leading the evidence in chief at the on-going Supreme Court challenge to the 2012 Presidential Election performed miserably. His sub-performance saw the NPP so-called electoral fraud case falling apart.
This may be the most depressing moment if you are a die-hard NPP member or supporter following the court proceedings on Television and Radio. For Bawumia to admit that he does not know of the existence of the Guidelines for the Conduct of the 2012 Elections and that he has never read the guidelines was the biggest shock of all.
As a result, poor Bawumia, the man who claims he is very knowledgeable was forced to read loudly in court parts of the Guidelines for the Conduct of the 2012 Elections that, the EC attaches great importance to the work of polling agents who act as watch dogs to enhance the acceptability of the entire polling.
Later, Bawumia was forced to painfully admit that his assertion that polling agents were mere observers was totally wrong. But he did that reluctantly after saying that polling agents are exalted observers.
But Mr Quashie-Idun got the most of the day for the Electoral Commission (EC) when he set Bawumia up to read portions of the guidelines which stated in unambiguous terms that failure of a presiding officer to sign the pink results sheet does not invalidate the results. You could see the faces of the NPP lawyers and supporters turn blue because this was something unexpected which further goes on to weaken their case.
The NPP has created the impression that the EC created 22 ‘’Ghost’’ polling stations, but the lead counsel for the EC produced a letter which the NPP had written directing their polling agents to the some of the so-called ghost polling stations. This evidence clearly weakened the NPP’s case on the 22 so-called ghost polling stations.
Bawumia, whose evasiveness was at his best and had to be cautioned and directed multiple times by the justices to answer questions rather than dance around them clearly plunged the dagger into the NPP’s case when he told the packed court that they did not file a single complaint concerning the election results and that when they verbally protested to the EC they were told to go to court.
Another issue that featured prominently was when Bawumia admitted that President Mahama never involved in any illegality to steal the election but rather benefitted from the illegality. Interestingly Bawumia and Co. have taken President Mahama to court as the first respondent for conspiring with the EC to steal the election at the expense of Nana Akufo-Addo.
Bawumia who was clearly seen as turning the whole cross-examination into a debate where at every opportunity he sought to dwell on his talking points, could not even agree that a polling agent’s name could be equated for his/her signature since not everybody has a signature.
The NPP’s evidence in chief who reeled under severe pressure was again forced to admit that the NPP did not raise a single objection to any of the results at the polling station because a returning officer did not sign his or her signature. Bawumia also told the court that the NPP do not have any single complaint sheet from any of their members concerning over voting, voting without verification or returning officers not appending their signatures on the pink results sheet.
When Tony Lithur the counsel for President Mahama suggested to Bawumia that there was nobody who voted in the 2012 Election whose identity was not checked by the biometric verification, Bawumia simply retorted that he was not there.
The fire that Bawumia went through under cross-examination shook him to the core, and the stony faces of the NPP lawyers in court clearly suggested that their star witness was being mauled and that his so-called trough of evidence was turning into tatters as the centre for Bawumia could no longer hold.
If you have been expecting a great performance from Bawumia, what we all saw in court clearly demonstrated that the guy simply does not have it. And it’s a matter of days that he will be finished off completely.
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