Ask Margaret Jackson

May 14, 2013

There have been loads of instances when Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the star witness of the on-going Supreme Court challenge of the 2012 Presidential Election, has sought to downplay the mislabelling, duplications, triplications and even quadruplicating of the so-called evidence that he had thrown at the feet of the justices.

We are all aware that any time that Dr Bawumia’s attention had been drawn to his flaws in his evidence gathering, he jumps to defend his so-called evidence and concludes that in spite of the dupes and other mistakes, he used the information under question only once in his analysis.

But Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, the NDC lead counsel, who always has to go through this useless and bogus schooling from Dr Bawumia, seems to have had enough of that bullshit talk. He, therefore, decided not to allow Bawumia to get away this time around.

In his cross-examination of Dr Bawumia on Tuesday May 14, Mr Tsikata accused Bawumia of introducing a different pink results sheet exhibit which is far different from what he has provided in his affidavit on the Nakaba Funeral Grounds polling station which bears exhibit MBP005598.

But before Bawumia had the chance to resort to his talking points, Mr Tsikata jabbed that he was being dishonest and trying to mislead the court. Bawumia, who seems to be under the impression that the current court proceedings is a political debate, immediately shot back that if Mr Tsikata is not afraid of the truth he should go into his analysis and point a single polling station which has been used more than once.

Mr Tsikata who was not amused with Bawumia’s charge and thinks that he has been abusing the court proceedings with his evasive answers told the court that he was not afraid of the truth. He also stated that Bawumia was dishonest and asked the court to call him to order.

That was when Mr Atuguba, the panel president intervened by saying, “"Don’t fight the battle beyond its confines. Limit yourself to the extent of the question being asked." Mr Tsikata and Mr Philip Addison, the lead counsel for the petitioners have to make interjections before Mr Atuguba again came in to remind everyone that the case is not a personal boxing contest in Bukom, so he enjoined all parties to be civil.

Currently, what beats the imagination of most people following the case is why Bawumia would make duplications and triplications among others, if he did not need those extra copies for anything at all.

And for Bawumia to admit to those mistakes and simply brush them off as nothing to write home about is simply unacceptable. That is the underlying factor which Bawumia seems not to care about.

Dr Bawumia constantly points to the mistakes of the Electoral Commission in the conduct of the 2012 Election in some polling stations. He does not stop there, but wants the Supreme Court to throw away the votes in those polling stations.

But we have a caveat here. Dr Bawumia’s evidence is woefully flawed. It’s loaded with mistakes and therefore highly questionable and unaccepted. Nonetheless, Bawumia is saying that don’t look at my mistakes. My mistakes did not cost somebody the presidency. Just ignore my mistakes and throw away the votes of others since I am the petitioner. What Bawumia may have forgotten is that if his mistakes are ignored and the votes that he is requesting to be annulled are finally annulled, it will cost President John Mahama his presidency.

That is why Mr Tsikata, who believes that Bawumia’s thinking process does not add up, has stated in the strongest voice that he is dishonest and trying to mislead the court.

Mr Tsikata is just trying to draw the attention of the court and Ghanaians to the fact that Dr Bawumia has gone to equity with unclean hands. And this unacceptable behaviour is not acceptable anywhere.

This case is about integrity, facts, pure evidence, and credibility and add whatever you can. You cannot therefore, make accusations and run away without corresponding it with pure evidence and facts.

magjackson80@yahoo.com http://majjacks80.blogspot.com