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Opinions of Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Columnist: Blankson, Nana Kow

Stumbling Philip Addison Finally Crash Lands

By Nana Kow Blankson

July 16, 2013

The NPP lead counsel, Mr Philip Addison who has been stumbling with falsehood in the on-going Supreme Court petition case finally crash landed with his winding cross-examination of Dr Afari Gyan on Tuesday July 16.

Mr Addison who has been involved in a fishing expedition since June 5 and has not been able to land any fishes to feed the hungry stomachs of the NPP supporters who are so deflated following the loss of their twice defeated presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2012 polls, finally gave up when it became all too clear that he has reached the dead end.

The NPP supporters ably goaded on by their leadership told the whole world when they filed their petition case at the Supreme Court to contest the results of the 2012 Presidential polls that, they have solid evidence that will blow the minds of Ghanaians when they hear it.

But since day one when Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, the NPP star witness mounted the box to give evidence and following his cross-examination and that of the NDC and Electoral Commission’s star witnesses, it became abundantly clear that the NPP folks perhaps did not know the real reason/s why they were in court.

On Tuesday July 16, Philip Addison came to court clearly prepared to use some bulldozing tactics to rattle Dr Afari Gyan and probably flatten him in order to end his uninspiring cross-examination. But Dr Afari Gyan may have gotten himself prepared for the onslaught.

In the end Philip Addison was made to come out with some bogus unsubstantiated numbers which he had wanted Dr Afari Gyan to put his accent to, but the Electoral Commissioner discounted each of the dubious numbers by saying that he cannot confirm those numbers.

Philip Addison mentioned 742,492 as numbers constituting over voting, 810,827 as voting without biometric verification, and 659,135 as votes without signatures by the presiding officers, 3,499,308 as constituting duplicate serial numbers and 3,499,308 as the total votes for all the alleged irregularities by the NPP.

Where Philip Addison conjured these numbers from, only he can tell, but even to the bemused NPP supporters, Dr Afari Gyan made mince-meat of these bogus numbers.

The much awaited evidence from the NPP has probably gone up in smoke as no one who has been following this petition case can pinpoint to just one solid evidence that can stick out.

To Philip Addison, he may have done his best in the midst of a quagmire case which had no legs from day one. But to others, the real diabolical intensions of the NPP have finally been put to rest.

We will now wait and see how the addresses of the parties will go before the final determination of the case by the nine justices of the Supreme Court. But believe me, there will be gnashing of teeth and so many supporters of the NPP cannot be comforted because they will find it too late that they have been misled all along.

nkowblankson@yahoo.com