Electoral Commission cooked up figures for Akufo-Addo – Tsatsu Tsikata tells Supreme Court

Tsatsu Tsikata, lead counsel for John Dramani Mahama in the 2020 election petition has alleged that Ghana's Electoral Commission rigged the 2020 presidential election in favour of the New Patriotic Party and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Tsatsu Tsikata told the Supreme Court during sitting on Friday, January 29, 2021, that figures were cooked up by the EC to make Akufo-Addo the winner of the polls.

Tsatsu Tsikata made the accusation in response to an objection raised by the counsel for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on certain portions of the witness statement of Johnson Asiedu Nketia.

Akoto Ampaw, Akufo-Addo’s lead counsel, sought to rubbish parts of the statement which he considers to be without merit and scandalous.

But Tsatsu Tsikata insisted that the statement submitted by the General Secretary provides conviction that the entire election process was meant to rig the polls in favour of Nana Akufo-Addo.

“The figures were simply being cooked to obtain its already predetermined outcome. The point we are making is that there has been sufficient basis made in the pleadings for there to be evidence that figures were just being cooked.

“The figures were coming from nowhere and without reference to anybody. They did not also follow due process of allowing each candidate’s party agent to be in the know of the figures put out there.

“My Lord, with the greatest respect, I find it very difficult to see how any objective observer of the ever-changing figures that have been put forward fail to see that we are not justified that the figures were indeed being cooked,” Tsatsu said.

Tsatsu was seeking to convince the seven-member panel to accept in totality the witness statement by Asiedu Nketia.

The court, however, struck out seven paragraphs of the statement with the reasoning that Asiedu Nketia could not validate the allegations.

The election petition hearing continues on February 1, 2021.