Politics

Mahama wants to stay relevance by creating media spectacle— Oppong Nkrumah

Mahama wants to stay relevance by creating media spectacle— Oppong Nkrumah

A spokesperson of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the ongoing elections petition hearing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has accused former President John Dramani Mahama and his legal team of deliberately trying to delay the election petition process in order to create a media spectacle.

According to him, their actions are geared towards remaining relevance by gaining media attention to always be in the news.

READ ON: Justice should not be sacrificed for expedition— Tsikata prayed court

Interacting with the media after the third day of court proceedings on Wednesday, Mr Oppong Nkrumah explained that after the Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) filed his petition on December 30 the next step should have been case management, instead, the petitioner is filing an application of interrogatory.

The interrogatory, according to him, is merely a fishing expedition technique that lawyers of the petitioner want to use to traverse the stipulated 42-day election adjudicating process.

READ ALSO: Mahama wanted to delay hearing with the 12 interrogatories— Oppong Nkrumah

Explaining why the election proceeding is not yet at the case management stage as expected, the president’s spokesperson said, “On the first day that we came, our colleagues from the other side started off with an interrogatory application asking for leave to go and amend [their petition]. Therefore, they started delaying the 42-day clock that was initially stated.

“We had the opportunity to comeback earlier this week and the afternoon before we appeared in Court, they filed another interrogatory application which you all saw took us almost two hours and the Court dismissed.”

“So it was expected that we go back to case management which is what we should be doing now. Every lawyer knows that by now, when you are coming to Court for case management. First, your Memorandum of issues must be drafted,” he stated.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah described as irrelevant the how the lead Lawyer of Mr Mahama, Tsatsu Tsikata prayed the court to give him ample time to file witnesses account.

READ MORE: Mahama is just not ready for the election petition trial— Frank Davies

“Second, you should have drafted your witness statement. So these matters become procedural. But because our colleagues are seeking to delay the process and get a media spectacle ongoing for some months, all they are doing is antics in the courtroom, seeking to delay the time,” he added.

Meanwhile,  Mr Tsikata has filed an application asking the Supreme Court to review its dismissal of the motion for some 12 interrogatories to be served on the Electoral Commission.

This was after the apex court had ruled that Mr Tsikata was relying on CI 47 instead of C.I. 99, which is currently in use.

Mr Tsikata argued that the interrogatories are critical as it would help the apex court determine the authenticity of the results that saw the NPP presidential candidate, emerging as the winner of the 2020 polls.

Reacting to this, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said “every lawyer knows that an application for review or an appeal does not operate as a ‘Stay of Proceedings’.”

“So you cannot claim or pretend before the cameras that mere virtue of the fact that you have filed an application for review there ought to be a ‘Stay of Proceedings,’” he added.

Source: www.spotonnews.net

Joyceline Natally Cudjoe

An Entertainment Columnist, Content Writer, Blogger, Novelist, Poet, and a Publicist. For business or story tip off, contact me on +233 24 646 6866 or email: [email protected]
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