General News of Wednesday, 20 January 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Election petition: NDC seriously selling case of stolen verdict – Lawyer

Lawyer Martin Kpebu play videoLawyer Martin Kpebu

A private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu, has said the current election petition before the Supreme Court had political dimensions aside the legal.

Speaking on Joy News PM Express programme, Mr Kpebu advanced that the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC, whose flagbearer is the petitioner in the case is selling the case of a stolen verdict.

“Even though the application (for interrogatories) was shot down, this case is not purely a legal case, it is also very political. What I see at play here apart from the legal aspect is that NDC is seriously selling the case of a stolen verdict. Seriously selling...

“So what is happening is that, each day as we get up and talk about this case, what is at the bottom of it (is), that the EC made some errors, and then to the layman, that somebody benefitted,” he submitted.

As of today, after day three of the hearing; the petitioners have expressed dissatisfaction over a number of rulings and directions on case management issued by the court. January 26 has been slated for hearing into the substantive issues of the petition.

The second respondent’s lawyers, say they are happy with the directions from the bench and have reiterated talk of the petitioners deliberately working to delay the pace of the hearing.

The second respondent is President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. The first is the Electoral Commission. The EC’s declaration of Akufo-Addo as president is being contested by Mahama who came second in the December 2020 polls.