One of the lawyers for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr. Frank Davies has taken on the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress, Johnson Asiedu Nketia over some utterances the latter made in court on Friday, January 29, 2021.
Mr. Nketia who was presented as a witness by ex-President John Mahama in the ongoing election petition case answered: “I don’t speak for the petitioner” several times during his cross-examination in court.
Mr. Davies who could not take such excuses lambasted Mr. Nketia accusing him of trying to be “elusive and evasive.”
“When Mr. Asiedu Nketia mounted the witness box in court today. He was largely evasive and for every question that was posed to him, his immediate response was that ‘I do not speak for the petitioner’. This is someone who in paragraph two of his own witness statement stated clearly that he was to lend aid to the petition filed by the petitioner.”
“So how can you come to court as a witness for a party and when you are asked questions in court, your response is that I don’t speak for the petitioner? Then why are you in the court? He thinks he can be evasive and elusive as he was in 2012 and 2013. This time around, he would not be lucky,” Mr. Davies said during an interview with the media shortly after the case was adjourned by the Supreme Court.
The court is expected to continue with the cross-examination on Monday, February 1, 2021.
Earlier proceedings in court
The Supreme Court prior to the cross-examination struck out portions of the witness statement filed by Mr. Asiedu Nketia.
This was after Akoto Ampaw, the lead lawyer for President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, asked the Supreme Court to expunge portions of Mr. Nketia’s statement.
Mr. Ampaw argued that ,ten paragraphs in Asiedu Nketia’s statement should be taken off because they were “not based on the pleadings of the petitioner, unduly prejudicial and scandalous”.
However, the lead counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata opposed the objections raised.
Mr. Tsikata insisted that every paragraph in Asiedu Nketia’s statement was “material” to their case.
However, the Supreme Court in ruling over the objection struck out seven paragraphs out of the ten paragraphs that President Akufo-Addo’s lawyer objected to.
The paragraphs struck out are 6,7,25,26,28,30 and 37.
