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Opinions of Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Columnist: Jackson, Margaret

Seventy Per Cent Of NPP Exhibits Not Signed

By Margaret Jackson

May 6, 2013

Call it a lousy job by Bawumia and Co and you may not be far from right. Or you may call it a rush work aimed at taking the respondents by surprise, and you may be spot on. You may also assume that the petitioners thought that by presenting uncompleted exhibits to the Supreme Court, they assumed that the respondents lacked the ability to pour over them to detect mistakes, and surely you would earn some marks for your judgement.

Mr Tsatsu Tsikata, lead counsel for the NDC in the on-going Supreme Court dispute of the 2012 Presidential Election, continues to detect and point out so many discrepancies, mistakes, duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates, shoddy work, unsigned exhibits, and missing stamps of the Commissioner of Oaths in his intense but meticulous cross-examination of Dr Mahamadu Bawumia at the Supreme Court.

During the hearing on Monday May 6, 2013, Mr Tsikata boldly told the court that about 70 per cent of the exhibits submitted to the Supreme Court by Bawumia and Co were not stamped by the Commissioner of Oath. Mr Tsikata who was surprised that such a thing could happen under the watchful eyes of Bawumia who claimed in court that he was present during the entire time that the Commissioner of Oath executed the stamping and signing ceremony then asked Bawumia to tell the court if he was there the entire period.

Mr Tsikata, who was not happy with the ‘weaving’ answer from Bawumia, then told him boldly that, “You submitted to the court a jumble of papers with mislabelling, duplications and quadruplicating.”

Mr Tsikata then went on to inform Bawumia that even the 11,916 polling station exhibits that the court ordered them to provide to the respondents were far below the number that he Bawumia and Co provided.

Bawumia, who seem stunned by the news of many of the exhibits not signed, simply stated that he cannot confirm the 70 per cent figure, but can only say that it was due to the magnitude of the pink sheets that were photo-copied that led to the dupes and triplicates.

The NPP led by Bawumia in court are gradually learning that they rushed to court to complain about some irregularities in the 2012 Elections, but the evidence that they themselves gathered to support their case is also full of irregularities, mistakes, rush work, duplications and in some instances even quadruplicating.

In this world you don’t go complaining about some mistakes committed by somebody when you end up doing the same thing. The case is definitely not looking too good for the NPP as Bawumia continues to gasp for breath to think about the answers he will give so that he will not eventually incriminate himself.

When a case is slipping through your hands you do not need to be a soothsayer to read between the lines. Bawumia has become flat, as questions from Tsatsu continue to deflate his ego and his so-called analysis and evidence. I am of the believe that the NPP is now looking for an escape route since the number of holes being punched into their so-called solid evidence is too much to bear.

magjackson80@yahoo.com http://majjacks80.blogspot.com