body-container-line-1
14.02.2021 Feature Article

Whatever Goes Around Also Comes Around

Whatever Goes Around Also Comes Around
14.02.2021 LISTEN

I read the Ghanaweb news story captioned “Election Petition: Tsatsu Tsikata to Cross-Examine Jean Mensa” (2/3/21) and could only double down with guffaws, because each and every one of the demands that the plaintiff’s attorneys are reported to be demanding from Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), such as copies of collated results of the 2020 General Election from the constituency level to the regional level are already in the possession of all 12, or so, political parties that participated in this fundamental democratic electoral process, including the collated results of the Presidential Election.

If the preceding afore-referenced news report has credibility, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that it does not, then even as yours truly noted in a previous column on this same subject, it well appears that the Mahama Posse is simply hell-bent on frittering the fiscal and human resources of the country. Which is why I am smack in perfect agreement with those patriotic Ghanaian citizens who are calling for the proceedings of the 2020 Presidential-Election Petition to be promptly quashed or halted and a punitive tab handed over to the Mahama Posse for prompt settlement. You see, it is quite obvious that the time and cranial resources of the Seven Supreme Court Jurists, including Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, adjudicating the petition could be better directed or more profitably channeled.

What is more, it is quite obvious that heading into the premises of the SCOG, or the Supreme Court of Ghana, that is, a soundly defeated Candidate John “Expedition-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama was fully aware that the judicial proceedings at the SCOG was not going to amount to the proverbial Hill-of-Beans. For the simple reason that as far back as the Akufo-Addo-filed 2012 Presidential-Election Petition, Ghanaians had been made fully aware of the fact that the SCOG was absolutely no resort for the definitive settlement of disputed election results, and that all elections, by judicial precedent set by the Justice William Atuguba-presided panel that adjudicated the 2012 Presidential-Election Petition, are won and lost at the polling station, and not within the architectural confines of the Supreme Court of Ghana.

Now, as to why, somehow, Candidate John “2014 Brazil World Cup Scam-Artist” Dramani Mahama would have the Anin-Yeboah Court make an unprecedented legal exception of his petition must give every Ghanaian citizen great pause and cause for concern. In 2012, Candidate Mahama, the then-Interim President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, had fully bought into the Atuguba Principle of absolute judicial noninterference in the “internal” administrative affairs of the Independent Electoral Commission; and that, indeed, about the only venue where elections could be won and lost in Ghana was at the polling station. Of course, back in 2012, Little Dramani was the undoubted favorite political steed of the clearly jaundiced Atuguba panel, notwithstanding glaring and convincing evidence that the latter had been criminally ceded a skin-of-teeth victory by a colluding and conniving Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, unarguably the worst Ghanaian citizen to serve as Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, even as publicly attested by Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the dynastic General-Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, the same political party that had fielded Mr. John “Airbus-Payola” Dramani Mahama as its unopposed Presidential Nominee.

Hopefully, the Mahama Petition will be the last of its kind in Ghana’s history and political culture. For, as already noted, it is flagrantly pointless and an inexcusable waste of human and fiscal resources. Plus, the fact that Candidate Mahama vigorously, albeit vacuously, campaigned on the noetic platform of being allowed back into Jubilee House, where he had already wastefully spent 8 precious years of the Ghanaian voter’s time and fiscal resources, so that, as he peevishly insisted in the leadup to the 2020 Presidential Election, “I will be able to correct my past mistakes and errors in judgment.” What chutzpah!

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

February 9, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]

body-container-line