We give glory to God for Ghana - Tsatsu

Minutes after his prayers for the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition to invalidate the election of President John Mahama were answered, lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata's first words were to sing God's praises.

'First of all I think we will like to say that we give God the glory for our country,' he said when asked to comment on the court's dismissal of the petition before proceeding to elucidate on what implications the Court's verdict had on the entire case.

'The Supreme Court has given a decision, the country will continue as a strong country. We are exceedingly delighted that the claims of the petitioners have been dismissed, it is quite clear that the court unanimously decided on things like the serial numbers being an invalid basis of claim, on some other claims there were differences among the judges.

'But, the main message that we would like to state quite clearly is that this decision of the Supreme Court dismisses all the claims of the petitioners, there should be no doubt about, and President John Mahama is the elected president of this country. That is clear and we hope that that will unambiguously be acknowledged and we can proceed as a united country to address the development challenges that we have.'

While he expressed delight at the verdict, he also congratulated President Mahama 'on the affirmation of his victory'.

Tsatsu also acknowledged the support and contributions of volunteers and other persons who supported their prosecution of the legal battle, saying the volunteers were the 'real heroes' of the work that went into exposing the 'limitations' and 'hollowness' of the petitioners' claims.

Time to booze
Co-counsel, Tony Lithur, expressed joy that the country remained a united one. His focus however, was to praise the media for a yeoman's job.

'I must say that nobody has said thank you to you guys. As you see, there were excesses here and there but effectively it became quite clear that you have a role to play in this country and I hope that going forward, you as pressmen would continue to play that role responsibly.

'But we're happy about the outcome, and maybe we can get drunk some time later,' he said.

Story by Isaac Yeboah/graphic.com.gh/Ghana