BAWUMIA STRETCHED AS MAHAMA COUNSEL REVS UP

By Felix Engsalige Nyaaba

Accra,  Fridat, April 19, 2013

Mr. Tony Lithur, lead counsel for President John Mahama, the first respondent in the ongoing election petition case at the Supreme Court yesterday took Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, one of the three member of the election petition through a marathon cross examination and exposed the petitioners for using one pink sheet of a polling station for multiple exhibits to make their case.

Mr. Lithur  who cross examined the witness after he had concluded his evidence in chief brought to light a number of duplicate pink sheets that the petitioners attached to their affidavits  and marked as exhibits to  before the court.

Dr. Bawumia  had  earlier led in evidence told the court that, the petitioners in their investigation discovered some irregularities in the 2012 presidential results that were declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) in favour of John Mahama.

He also told the court that based on the outcome of the investigation; the petitioners have categorized all the irregularities into 24,000 and have marked those as exhibits before the court, praying the court to annul the results.

But Mr. Lithur  on the other hand  put it to him that  those 24,000  irregularities  were rather  deliberately  misrepresented  in attempt to deceive the court so they , the petitioners could have their way on the case .

He told the witness in point blank  they  knew that they have no case to make but was only bent on doing all what they could to put the court into the believing that irregularities and malpractices  did indeed took place during the  2012 presidential elections.

Counsel also put it to the witness that the pink sheets that have been used as exhibits to the court were rather duplicated and that the petitioners aim was to deceive the court so they could have the results annul or declared in their favour instead.

During the cross examination, it was discovered that all the pink sheet used as exhibit  from the affected polling station  where  over voting, voting without biometric machines and use of duplicate serial numbers allegedly took place were rather no the case.

When by counsel why two different exhibits have the same polling station  name, the same  serial number and the same  code number, Dr. Bawumina   said  it was done out of mistake and that the  exhibit in the CDs  that have been presented to the court were rather the correct ones.

Asked if the mistake was not deliberate to throw dust into the court eyes, the witness said it was as a result of the use of both manual and electronic versions to print the exhibits.

Mr. Lithur drew the court attention of a number of duplication of pink sheets one polling station for two different exhibits, saying that the petitioners did so deliberately to deceive the court so they could have their case uphold.

But Bawumia in defenece told the court that even though on the face of the hard copies of the exhibits there was duplication, the analyses of the results were done on one polling station.

Counsel: Can you identify and confirm that the exhibit here marks are the same pink sheet uses for two exhibits,

Witness;, yes I can confirm it is one pink sheet used for two different exhibits.

Counsel: So you will agree with me that you did this by mistake?

Witness; yes, but the analysis could confirm that this was done on one polling station.

After several cross examination, the court ended the proceeding and adjourned the matter till Monday April 22, 2013 for continuation.

Affected Polling Station Reduced

Dr Bawumia,  who was  testifying  on his last evidence in chief,  yesterday  also  told the  Supreme Court  that  upon several  analysis and updating of their  records, the  number of the polling station that the alleged irregularities took place   have been reduced.

He said after a careful analysis, it was discovered that the results from 83 out of the 11, 823 polling stations were not needed and that they would give evidence on those polling station.

The witness in his evidence also told the court that, the assertion by the EC that both the international and local lection observers’ statement that the election was free and fair was never baseless.

According to Dr Bawumia, the views of the election observers were only on the conduct of the process but not the outcome, adding that the observers have no capacity to determine the act of irregularities, malpractices and duplication of voting material.

He told the court that statistically, the presidential results were marred with irregularities, where votes were reduced and that Nana Akuffo Addo could have won the election with 50.47 % against President John Mahama of 48.06%.

Tony Lithur

Counsel for the president, comes in, “we objects to the tendering of the documents by the witness, the witness cannot amend his evidence while in the boxes, he has sworned an affidavit so he must strict to that,”

“If they wish to amend their case, they should do the proper thing, they cann seek leave to amend their case but not when the witness is in the witness box. “ this is a serious business, they should stick to the case they have pleaded,” ” Mr Lithur l contended.

E C Lawyer

Mr. James Quashie-Idun counsel for the EC said the petitioners cannot present new evidence that they did not pleaded for without amending their case.

He said the case is not a any ordinary one in which they could easily amend their stamen and claims whiles the witness is in the box.

Tsatsu Tsikata

Counsel for the NDC said the petitioners cannot amend their case at the time the witness is giving evidence, adding that the documents that they seek to smuggle into must be properly be done or they sought amend from the court.

“My Lords, we object to the tendering of these documents, the  petitioners should constrain themselves to the pleads in the affidavit, the document in the witness hand is a complete new one, the witness is on oath and cannot submit to the court a document that they have not pleaded for,” he argued.

He told the court not to allow the witness to tender in documents that they have not attached to their affidavit, adding that the documents were not documents on oath.

Court

‘But can you tell us the import of this decision to reduce the number of polling station on your statistical analysis; we want to know what informed such decision.

“We  understand we are dealing of about 11, 824 or so polling station, but you are now talking about these figures from 11, 138, can we know what happens to the others and why this decision?’

Philip Addison

The lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Phlip Addison, told the court that the decision was to reduce the burden on the court and to help expedite the proceedings.

He said  upon the analysis, the  number of polling station that the irregularities took place has been reduced, but the outcome of the results on those  polling station could have effects on the results.

After back and fort of argument, the court retired to chambers and came back with a ruling which overruled the objection of the tendering of documents to amend the number of polling station in contention before the court.