Asiedu-Nketia Exposes Nature Of Conspiracy Against President Mahama

By Kofi Thompson

The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, is a man I have been critical of, on occasion. So I cannot possibly be accused of seeing him through rose-tinted glasses.

His down to earth witness-box-manner, in giving evidence in the December 2012 presidential election petition currently being heard by the Supreme Court panel of nine judges, made him come across as an honest man, earnestly seeking to help the Supreme Court unravel the truth in the matter before it.

In his last day under cross-examination by Mr. Philip Addison, he went to the heart of what amounts to a conspiracy against President Mahama, in simple, plain language.

To paraphrase him, it is untenable that elections in known polling stations on the ground, could be described as unknown, when voting did in fact take place in them - and the petitioners' party's designated polling agents, were indeed present as votes were cast there, and after the vote-count, when polling ended, duly signed the famous pink sheets.

In his view, the fact that there had been mispelling of polling station names, and errors made in recording polling station serial numbers on the pink sheets (duly signed by NPP polling agents in any case), could not suddenly turn known polling stations on the ground, in which voting actually took place, into unknown ones - and that it was wrong to describe those actual polling stations on the ground in which voting indeed took place, as unknown polling stations, to the Supreme Court panel of judges hearing the presidential election petition case.

That particular answer to the petitioners' lead counsel, Mr. Philip Addison, during his cross-examination of Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, makes it easy for every discerning Ghanaian, to now come to an understanding of, and to see the abominable falsehood, which the petitioners want the Supreme Court to use as justification, for disenfranchising millions of voters across the country: and deny President Mahama his hard-won victory, in the December 2012 presidential election.

Speaking personally, for example, from what Mr. Asiedu-Nketia told the Supreme Court, it is as if the petitioners are seeking to turn the polling station I am registered to vote in, and in which actual voting took place on both days that polling took place, and where the NPP's polling agent signed the pink sheet to approve the vote-count, into a phantom and unknown polling station, in the petition brought before the Supreme Court.

Yet, the NPP's polling agent in my polling station, watched the entire voting process with eagle eyes - as did all who voted there, incidentally.

He also voluntarily signed the polling station's pink sheet to approve the vote-count.

Yet still, the petitioners insist that it is a phantom and unknown polling station, in the petition they have brought before the Supreme Court - merely because the stressed-out and harried presiding officer in our polling station had mispelt the polling station's name, and made errors in recording the pink sheet's serial number. Incredible.

Yet, nothing sinister took place in our polling station - despite what the geniuses who forced the NPP into this legal quagmire, would have the world believe.

Any mistakes made on the pink sheet from my polling station, were unintentional - and made in the full glare of thousands of eagle-eyed voters determined to prevent any vote-rigging. Nothing untoward about that, is there?

Talk about an Alice-in-wonderland, smoke-and-mirrors-sleight-of-hand manipulation of the legal system specifically designed to enable a few desperate men and women, lustful for power at any cost, to snatch the presidency from President Mahama.

To that end, an egregious falsehood that seeks to disenfranchise all those who voted in the polling station that I, and a few thousand others, registered to vote in, and in which actual voting took place - has been taken to the Supreme Court. Amazing.

And insincere and selfish individuals are seeking to use an exhausted presiding officer's inability to spell the polling station's name correctly, and his error in recording the pink sheet's serial number, as justification for taking away our constitutional right to vote in an election in Ghana: in which we duly registered to vote, and were, and are, indeed, listed on the electoral register. Amazing.

It illustrates perfectly, the mindset of the small band of too-clever-by-half hawks, who forced the NPP into this dead-end that will eventually end in ignominy for the party.

Luckily for the NPP, that approaching defeat in the Supreme Court election petition case, will result in the sidelining of the geniuses who dreamt up that expensive folly - and make them permanently irrelevant in the scheme of things in the NPP. That can only benefit the NPP in the long run. A very good thing that is indeed.

And if the party were to go on to select Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo yet again, to make a third attempt at the presidency, a 2016 presidential election campaign, free of the baleful influence of that small band of arrogant hardliners, might indeed stand the NPP's presidential candidate a far better chance of making it third time lucky.

Incidentally, in all this, I have never forgotten what Atta Akyea & Co. said, in the immediate aftermath of the December 2008 presidential election, in the tape-recording of their shabby attempt to deny the winner of that election, Professor Mills, the presidency.

Their dastardly plan was simple: use a "right judge" - meaning a judge known to be secretly loyal and sympathetic to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) - to overturn the December 2008 presidential election result.

Luckily for Ghana, in that instance, wise heads in the NPP prevailed, and as the late J. B. Da Rocha made plain, in saying that what they were embarking on, was neither in the interest of the NPP nor that of Ghana's, that back-door route to the presidency through the manipulation of the legal system was abandoned.

Kudos to Johnson Asiedu-Nketia. He has exposed the conspiracy to deny President Mahama the presidency, after winning the December 2012 presidential election, in simple language to ordinary Ghanaians, who can, and do think for themselves, in brilliant fashion. Fantastic