Election Petition: Dr. Kpessa-Whyte to mount witness box today
The Supreme Court will later today, Tuesday, February 2, 2021, continue the hearing of the 2020 Election Petition case filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama.
The court on Monday, February 1, 2021, discharged Mr. Mahama’s star witness, Johnson Asiedu Nketia following an exhaustive cross-examination by counsel for 1st and 2nd Respondents.
The court is this morning expected to admit the testimony of Dr. Michael Kpessa-Whyte as 2nd Witness for the petitioner, who will go on to be examined by lawyers for the Electoral Commission and President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Michael Kpessa-Whyte, a former Executive Director of the National Service Secretariat, and Mr. Asiedu Nketia are the witnesses for Mr. Mahama in the ongoing case at the Supreme Court.
What did the counsels say of Mr. Asiedu Nketia’s cross-examination?
The legal team of President Akufo-Addo believes their lead counsel, Mr. Akoto Ampaw was able to expose what they claimed are flaws and inconsistencies in the election petition filed by John Mahama.
According to them, Mr. Ampaw did this through his cross-examination of General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia.
Mr. Kojo Oppong who addressed the media insisted that Mr. Akoto Ampaw used the day to correct “outright falsehoods” by the petitioner.
“We are of the view that today has been a big day in court and the big word today is ‘exposed’. 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 (Mr. Mahama) and the witness who was in the witness box today. So when you juxtapose the earlier claims that they won and now what they are saying in the witness box today that they don’t know who won, you will realize there’s a discrepancy…One of the first things that the counsel on our side sort to do today was to expose the inconsistencies and sometimes outright falsehood by the petitioner and the witness,” he said.
Meanwhile, the legal team of Mr. Mahama expressed confidence in answers General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Asiedu Nketia gave during his cross-examination in court.
According to them, Mr. Nketia didn’t say anything that undermined their case.
Madam Marietta Brew who also addressed the media insisted that the NDC scribe proved why the petitioner, John Mahama, is disputing the election results adding that Asiedu Nketia left the witness box with his credibility intact.
“We are happy with the testimonies given by our General Secretary today. 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. Other interesting things happened in court today one of which is the videos. They sought to try to dent the credibility of our General Secretary. But they were unsuccessful.”
“In the end, his credibility rather soared because if you watched the video, it was clear that he never said at any point in time that the petitioner had won the elections and rightly so. He stated that based on the 141 parliamentary seats we had won, the projection was that he was going to win so, of course, they flopped in that regard,” she said while addressing the media after the hearing on Monday.
