By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Reports indicating that counsel for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), as of the close of the deadline of July 30, 2013, had not filed his client's closing address was all to be expected (See "NDC Fails to Meet Address Deadline" Radioxyzonline.com/Ghanaweb.com 7/31/13). For throughout the proceedings of the Atuguba-presided court, Mr. Tsatsu "The Thief" Tsikata demonstrated that he had absolutely no regard, or respect, for the members of the highest court of the land.
Now, the first test of its conscientious impartiality is for the Court to reject outright the closing address of the National Democratic Congress. For the latter and its counsel, who is also a key operative of the NDC, were afforded the same temporal span as the petitioners and the first and second respondents, namely, President John Dramani Mahama and the Afari-Gyan-led Electoral Commission (EC). And so they cannot complain that they have either been given short-shrift treatment or a raw deal. They simply decided to voluntarily commit judicial suicide, clearly because as the petitioners indicated from the get-go, the Kwabena Adjei and Asiedu-Nketia group had absolutely no legitimate case going into the Election 2012 petition hearings.
Alas, the first sign that justice is apt to be denied the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) eerily inheres in the bizarre decision of the Supreme Court's Registrar to accept Mr. Tsikata's address, more than twelve hours in the wake of the deadline. Mr. Kojogah Adawudu, a member of the NDC legal team offered the lame excuse that when Mr. Tsikata and his Abongo Boys arrived at the office of the Supreme Court's Registrar, the officer in charge of receiving and taking stock of the filings had left for the day.
Yes, the Registrar had left for the day because it was long past his legally contracted working hours; unless, of course, the Tsikata posse expected the man to spend the rest of the night in his office, simply because the NDC counsel and his minions are above the laws of the land. It is also obvious that Mr. Tsikata does not believe himself to have made a cogent case for both Mr. Mahama and his National Democratic Congress government.
Blaming vehicular traffic for their tardiness in getting to the office of the Supreme Court Registrar would also not cut it; for the third respondent, or rather counsel or the third respondent, is no stranger to the temper of traffic congestion in the nation's capital, unless he had originally intended to copter or airlift himself into the Supreme Courthouse. Now, what their flagrant tardiness means is that the Atuguba-presided court may have to delay the date scheduled for the delivery of its decision and/or verdict by at least 24 hours. And the latter indisputably implies that the Ghanaian taxpayer is likely to pay an additional several thousand more cedis to have the court effectively bring its work to a close.
Whatever the outcome or nature of the decision and/or verdict delivered by the Court, one thing is incontrovertibly certain: the petitioners of the 2012 presidential election, definitively proved their case that, indeed, a slew of deliberately orchestrated irregularities did occur. The comical idea that the Election 2012 presidential petition is primarily about the search for electoral reforms is just that, a comical idea.
Needless to say, the Election 2012 Petition was squarely and unreservedly about democratic justice. And the paid NDC hacks and political comedians had better get the same deeply etched into the proverbial gray matter underneath their skulls!
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
July 31, 2013
E-mail: [email protected]
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