It’s a good thing Mahama has gone to court – Akufo-Addo

The President-elect Akufo-Addo has commended his main contender in the December 7, 2020, presidential election, John Mahama for petitioning the Supreme Court over the results.

Akufo-Addo opined that the action of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer will bring an end to weeks of protest by supporters of the party following his declaration as President-elect by  the Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensa.

Speaking in parliament during his final State of the Nation Address to end his first term of office, Nana Akufo-Addo said he was satisfied the election was conducted in a fairly manner despite the allegations raised by the leadership of the NDC.

“I recognise that my main opponent in the election, former President John Mahama, has gone to the Supreme Court to seek its intervention, and grant reliefs that he believes were compromised in the conduct of the elections.

“It is good for the nation that, in the end, he chose the legal path, instead of the pockets of violence that have attended the rejection of the results by his party in the period after the elections,”.

He also used the platform to entreat the citizenry to make a “deliberate decision to invest in the rule of law and uphold the integrity of the institutions of state, so that no person or group of persons take the law into their own hands with impunity.”

Akufo-Addo remarks follows a decision by the NDC’s flagbearer, John Mahama, on Wednesday, December 30, 2020, to file a petition at the Supreme Court to challenge the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election results.

The NDC had said the petition details “serious violations of the 1992 Constitution by the Electoral Commission and its Chairperson and Returning Officer for the Presidential Election, Mrs. Jean Mensa in the conduct of their constitutional and legal responsibility.”

Mr. Mahama is therefore seeking an order from the Supreme Court to the effect that, “the purported declaration of the results of the 2020 Presidential Election on the 9th day of December 2020 is unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever.”