Nana Addo and the Supreme Court: Did Nana Addo win the 2012 Elections?

Friday 28 December 2012 will be recorded in the annals of Ghana's democracy when the opposition NPP and Nana Addo finally filed suit at the Supreme Court to challenge election results after a very competitive electioneering process. This is a case study for some of our fellow African countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Togo, DR Congo, Cote d’Ivoire etc to emulate. My honest and objective opinion is that ‘win or lose’ it’s a ‘win/win’ for the growth of African democracy.

We all know that it’s a case for the Supreme Court to decide yet other deep sources and eminent people have made comments about the impending case. One such gentleman is Nana Asante Bediatuo, a very astute constitutional lawyer alleging that 99.9% of electoral irregularities occurred in President Mahama’s strongholds. Making inferences from the results declared by the Electoral Commission of Ghana indicated that President John Mahama won in 8 out of 10 regions which could be referred to as his strongholds in this regard. Implying that less vote misappropriation occurred outside NDC’s strongholds (Ashanti & Eastern Regions)?

The NPP also alleged that from the 1,340,018 illegal votes, they are asking the Supreme Court to strike out 914,871 votes which were illegally given to John Mahama. So now coming back to Nana Bediatuo’s allegation, it means that less than a 1000 votes were misappropriated for John Mahama outside his stronghold which also means that Nana Addo benefited 425, 147 illegal votes probably from his strongholds? So if thief thief thief man who is found guilty? Is it not both?

Now let’s think outside the box for a minute and put the interest of Ghana first. Does this analogy prove anything at all that both NPP and NDC engaged in alleged voting malpractices? Who were the culprits sharing the alleged illegal votes? Does this affect the merits of the case at all if both NPP and NDC were found culpable in alleged voting malpractices?

Fellow aspiring Ghanaian and African leaders, it is about time we chose the civil way of solving electoral disputes in the Law Courts and not run into the jungle. Ghana First! God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!!

Writer: Kofi Otabil