Answer the questions and stop being sarcastic – Supreme Court rebukes Asiedu Nketia
The National Democratic Congress General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, was chided for not giving direct answers during his cross-examination in the election petition hearing.
“Answer the questions. At times, you try to be a bit sarcastic. That is not done in the courtroom. You don’t do this in cross-examination,” the Chief Justice, Kwasi Anin-Yeboah said to the Mr. Asiedu Nketia during the cross-examination on Monday, February 1, 2021.
At the point of the rebuke, the NDC General Secretary was being asked if he had contrary evidence on the total number of valid votes that President Akufo-Addo had during the elections.
The NDC scribe responded by saying “those figures were not available.”
President Akufo-Addo’s lead lawyer retorted by asking why the petition was challenging the election results “without any evidence of what the actual results were.”
Mr. Asiedu Nketia proceeded to begin an analogy suggesting the declared results did not add up when he was cut off by the judges and cautioned to stop beating about the bush.
“If I know that two plus two is four, and I am presented with results that say two plus two is six, I will challenge it,” the NDC General Secretary had said.
In response to the caution, Asiedu Nketia got the court laughing with a joke saying: “The palm wine tappers are trying to catch up with court procedures.”
At the end of the cross-examination, Mr. Mahama’s legal team expressed satisfaction with Mr. Asiedu Nketia’s performance.
“We are happy with the testimonies given by our General Secretary. In fact, nothing that he has said undermines our case. Indeed, everything he said goes to the point that we are entitled to the declarations we are seeking,” a spokesperson of Mahama’s legal team, Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, said.
On the other hand, President Akufo-Addo’s team said the NDC General Secretary’s cross-examination only exposed flaws in Mr. Mahama’s petition.
One of the President’s spokespersons in the case, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said: “You would notice that counsel on our side spent a lot of time exposing the inconsistencies and sometimes the outright falsehoods that have been put out by the petitioner and the witness who was in the witness box”.
