I Will Not Be Like Bawumia Who Is Now Learning To Lie In the Witness Box – Gen. Mosquito

I Will Not Be Like Bawumia Who Is Now Learning To Lie In the Witness Box – Gen. Mosquito

John Asiedu Nketia who will be representing the first and third respondents in the ongoing 2012 election petition filed by the NPP against President Mahama, the Electoral Commission (EC) and the NDC says he will not waste time like what the star witness of the petitioners is doing in the witness box when it gets to his turn to be cross examined. 

According to him, there is no need for a witness to learn what he already knows and has been asked to clarify during cross examination. This he believes elongates proceedings and such is what the court is witnessing during Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s cross examination. 

“There is no need for you to learn the truth you already know. If Bawumia had given straight forward answers, I would have believed by now we have reached far in the cross examination. 

“…If he (Dr. Bawumia) responds to question put before him in the witness box, and stay glued to his answers, the case will accelerate. His yes should be his yes and no to be his no.

“…Bawumia should stop using big English and his tricks in court to deceive the court, he must be straight forward,” he told Asempa FM.

He however expressed readiness to face the petitioners in the witness box and willing to make the proceedings move quicker than what Dr. Bawumia is doing.

Tsatsu has scored an own-goal - Sir John asserts

General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie says he is elated by the Supreme Court ruling which allows respondents to ask questions based on pink sheets not tendered in evidence. According to him, the ruling vindicates the petitioners decision to challenge the conduct of the 2012 general election in court.

 The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favour of counsel for the third respondent, Tsatsu Tsikata, enabling him to ask questions on pink sheets which had not been filed as part of the affidavits by any of the parties, provided it is related to the irregularities raised by the petitioners in the case. Counsel for the petitioners, Philip Addison had objected to a pink sheet introduced in court by Mr. Tsikata for the key witness in the case, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to identify. It was overruled.

 Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme Tuesday, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie said the ruling has exposed the double standards of the respondents. He scoffed at the decision by Mr. Tsikata to bring in a pink sheet not tendered in evidence to prove an irregularity when hitherto he [Tsatsu]argued that there were no irregularities in the 2012 elections. The NPP scribe was of the opinion that Tsatsu Tsikata "scored an own goal" by veering off his party’s position to deny any irregularity in the election.
 Sir John as he is popularly called said the NDC is now clutching at straws because all their plans to delay the case has fallen flat in their case. He wondered why the NDC is now running away from their own shadows when they claim the NPP had no case.

 Sir John stated unequivocally that the erroneous impression being created that NPP is only seeking to annul votes of President Mahama is part of the NDC propaganda. He explained that the petitioners are also praying the court to annul some votes won by the NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo. In a rebuttal, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia maintained that the petitioners "demonstrated in bad faith". He noted that the ruling by the Judges is the beginning of the humiliation the NPP will suffer at the end of the case.
 The NDC scribe posited that they have ample evidence to prove that the petitioners claims are just a figment of their imagination. Asiedu Nketia commended the Judges for not allowing the theatrics of the petitioners lawyers to sway them in their judgment.

Frustrated Tsatsu descends into the gutters

PRESS RELEASE

A clearly frustrated Tsatsu Tsikata, Counsel for 3rd Respondents in the ongoing Presidential Election Petition at the Supreme Court, 

on Monday morning lost his cool and threw tantrums at his learned colleague, Philip Addison, who represents the petitioners, and ordered him to “shut up”.

Lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata, who represents the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the case - and who was cross examining Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, main witness of the petitioners - lost his cool as Counsel Philip Addison rose to object to a question he had posed to the witness on its relevancy to the issues being determined by the court.

But even before Counsel Philip Addison could make his objection, Lawyer Tsikata angrily exclaimed “would you shut up there” to the surprise of all present as the language was unexpected from members of the legal profession.

Interestingly, Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata is the one who had throughout the trial loudly insisted on the need for his colleague learned counsels to uphold what he termed as the “high ethical standards of the legal profession” and therefore comes as a shock that he would abandon those standards and rather go on the path of using unsavory words and losing his temper in the courtroom.

Counsel Philip Addison who did not take kindly to the rude words used by Tsatsu Tsikata protested and urged the court to call the Counsel for 3rd respondents to order especially as he had developed a tradition of using insulting words in the courtroom since the case commenced. However, though the court did not issue a direct caution to the lawyer, with Presiding Judge William Atuguba urging all lawyers to go back to the rules of the game to preserve decency in the court.

Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata in previous days has come under a barrage of criticisms for what had become a boring cross examination of the main witness with many commentators including some lawyers questioning the hype around him which suggested time and again that he was a legal genius.

Before he commenced his cross examination, Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata was touted by the NDC and its commentators as their “legal Maradona” whose cross examination would collapse the case of the petitioners.

However, after four days of cross examination, the expected demolition of the petitioners’ case has not been witnessed with the lawyer virtually repeating the same cross examination tactics adopted by Counsel for John Mahama, 1st Respondent in the case, Tony Lithur which was seen as largely being pointless and irrelevant to the two issues being determined by the court, that is, whether there were irregularities in the conduct of the December 7th Elections and whether those irregularities, if any, affected the outcome of the December Presidential elections.

Earlier in his cross examination, Counsel Tsatsu Tsikata produced letters supposedly signed by the 1st petitioner, Nana Akufo-Addo delegating polling agents to some unknown polling stations but after a thorough check of the letters, Dr. Bawumia revealed that though the letters were purported to have been written between the 5th and 7th December 2012, the letters were amazingly received on the 3rd December suggesting that they could be possible fakes.