Ofosu Ampofo flexing must stop

True to his character, the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, says the opposition party will resist all attempts by the governing New Patriotic Party to use technicalities to remove the MP for Assin North, Joe Gyaakye Quayson, from office.

Referring to ongoing proceedings at a Cape Coast High Court which deferred judgment on the matter to July 28, he said the fact that Joe Gyaakye Quayson had invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the matter meant that proceedings should be stayed.

Even though the Supreme Court has set July 27, for its decision, NDC National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, waxing excessively political, said the people of Assin North should not be denied a representation because the NPP needs to increase its numbers in Parliament.

At a post court interview with the media, Mr Ofosu Ampofo stressed that the NDC has identified “machinations against the MP and the party has been very worried about the direction the case was going.”

NDC Rules of court
The NDC, he indicates, has been very uncomfortable with the judge’s earlier decision to pronounce judgment on the 14th of July and their belief was that there were some pieces of evidence that would have been adduced before the court, if it had allowed oral submissions to be made before it.

According to the NDC national chairman, because the NDC’s legal team and the vetting committee of the party thoroughly examined documentation of all those who were domiciled outside the country and were seeking to contest elections in the country, and were satisfied with the documentation in that regard, the embattled NDC candidate should be allowed to represent his constituents.

Interestingly, he even cited Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin, to have been comfortable with documentation regarding the NDC candidate’s candidacy. In our opinion, the claims that Ofosu Ampofo is making is only political and misguided because the right to make such claims belong to his lawyers.

Beyond that, he and his party or their lawyers still have the courts to run to in drawing their attention to what they claimed had been agreed upon by their leadership and the Electoral Commission.
We are surprised that the NDC has a case and the courts are denying them of space, time and opportunity to make their point.

It is intriguing that this point is coming up at this period when the case has run over five full months.
Whatever the situation is, we at The Thunder believe it is not too late for the NDC to make their point if, indeed, they have one.

That apart, making the kind of noise that the NDC chairman is making is in no one’s interest, except that the NDC is amplifying the sound bytes about the party having an agenda to discredit citizens and institutions that stand in their way in their unholy march to power.

That language is braggadocio, foul and intemperate – unbecoming of a leader, NDC Chair and a citizen aspiring to the highest office of the land.

Ofosu Ampofo should retract and apologise to the nation, and allow the right people, who in this case are the party’s lawyers, to respond reasonably and in a civilised manner.