President Nana Akufo-Addo has praised the verdict given by the seven-member justices of the Supreme Court on the 2020 election petition filed by former President John Dramani Mahama.
According to him, his second term victory was affirmed by the Court “in a well-reasoned” and “excellent” ruling.
Delivering his first State of the Nation Address in his second term on Tuesday, March 9, Mr Akufo-Addo said the judgment was “well reason and excellent of the Supreme Court presided over by the Chief Justice on 4 March.”
He stated that his victory in the December 7, 2020 Presidential elections was “unanimously” upheld by the Apex Court.
The seven-member panel of the Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed former President John Mahama’s application challenging the 2020 election results.
According to the Supreme Court, the suit is “without merit.”
Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, prior to reading the judgment on Thursday, March 4 said “My Lords, the judgment of the court is unanimous and same will be read by the President of the [Supreme] Court.”
In reading, Chief Justice, Anin-Yeboah stated that the petitioner failed to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. He added that the errors announced by the Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensa, which were subsequently corrected cannot be used to invalidate the election after those had been corrected.
The Court also said the errors announced by Jean Mensa did not adversely affect any of the candidates in the 2020 elections. The Supreme Court also held that the petitioner failed to adduce enough evidence to merit a re-run between Mr Mahama and President Akufo-Addo.
The Court also described as ‘fanciful’ the testimony by two witnesses of the petitioner in the Election Petition which ends today.
The evidence given by the petitioner’s second and third witnesses, Michael Kpessa-Whyte and Rojo Mettle-Nunoo respectively, were of no relevance to the issues underdetermination.
“As for the other two witnesses, that is Petitioner’s Witness, PW2 and 3; Dr Kpessa-Whyte and Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, the little said, about their testimonies relative to the issues at stake, the better.”
The ruling went further to explain why the court had chosen the word fanciful to describe the narration that the two men gave during their time in the dock.
“They recounted the fanciful tale of how the chairperson refused to heed their complaints on some irregularities they noticed on some of the collation forms which came from the regions.
“We describe this evidence as fanciful because, despite this alleged protest, they went ahead to verify and certify 13 of 16 regional collation sheets,” the ruling added.
The two were representatives of petitioner John Dramani Mahama in the EC’s national collation centre known as the strong room.
The star witness of the petitioner was the National Democratic Congress General Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia.
The court had affirmed that the petitioner was not compelled to appear in person if he believed another person could competently represent his interest in court.
The Petition was lodged at the apex court by former President John Dramani Mahama, who was the flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC. Mahama was challenging the EC’s December 9 declaration of Akufo-Addo as President-elect.
Mahama dragged two parties to the top court. They were: the Electoral Commission and President Akufo-Addo as first and second respondents respectively.
The issues
- Whether or not the petition discloses any cause of action – that is if there is any legal grounds for the petition,
- Whether or not the 2nd Respondent [Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo] met the Article 63 (3) threshold of the 1992 Constitution – this constitutional provision states that a presidential candidate must obtain more than 50 per cent of the total valid votes cast to be declared as President-elect,
- Whether or not the 2nd Respondent [Nana Akufo-Addo] still met Article 63(3) of the 1992 threshold by the exclusion or inclusion of the Techiman South constituency presidential election results.
- Whether or not the declaration by the first respondent (EC) on December 9 of the presidential election conducted on December 7 was in violation of Article 63(3) of the 1992 Constitution,
- Whether or not the alleged vote padding and other errors complained of by the petitioner affected the outcome of the presidential election results of 2020.
