The reasons for the dismissal of the election petition by former President John Mahama by the Supreme Court and the rejection of the judgment of the Supreme Court by John Mahama are the trending stories in the Ghanaian press on Friday.
The Graphic reports that the Supreme Court in a unanimous judgment on Thursday said it has not reason to order a re-run of the 2020 presidential election between Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and John Dramani Mahama.
The court therefore dismissed the Election Petition which was filed by Mr. John Dramani Mahama, challenging the declaration of Nana Akufo-Addo as the winner of the election.
The seven-member panel presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah, said the petition lacked merit.
The judgment by the Supreme Court, which took almost 2 hours to read pointed out that the petitioner failed to provide any evidence to prove that the declaration by the EC Chairperson, Mrs. Jean Adukwei Mensa, who was the Returning Officer and had some errors, which was eventually corrected, affected the results of the election.
The court said the petitioner’s legal team led by Mr Tsatsu Tsikata did not present any data to counter the figures announced by the EC Chairperson.
The newspaper says that the former President John Dramani Mahama says he disagreed with the Supreme Court verdict which dismissed his 2020 presidential election petition on Thursday.
Reacting to the verdict on Thursday evening, Mr. Mahama said while he was not surprised at the decision of the judges, he disagreed with it and the processes of trial and ruling of the court.
He, however, indicated that he was aware that he was legally bound by the decision of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court per a unanimous decision delivered on Thursday affirmed Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a validly elected President of Ghana.
The court said the petitioner, Mr. John Dramani Mahama did not demonstrate in any way how the alleged errors made by the Electoral Commission (EC) in the declaration of the presidential election result by the chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Adukwei Mensa affected the outcome of the election.
“The petitioner has not produced any evidence to re-butt the presumption created by the publication of the C.I. 135”, for which the court said the petitioner wanted a re-run to be made.
In effect, the Supreme Court said there is no reason to order a re-run, as one of the reliefs by Mr Mahama and dismissed the petition as having no merit.
The Times says that the Parliament has approved the nomination of 13 persons as ministers-designate by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Of the 13, the nominations of three of the ministers-designate were subjected to secret voting with 10 others sailing through by unanimous decision at a sitting of the House, which stretched to about 3am on Thursday, in Accra.
The nominees, who had their approval by voting, were Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Minister-designate for Information, Mrs Mavis Hawa Koomson, Minister-designate, Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, and Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister-designate, Food and Agriculture.
At the end of about three hours of voting, sorting and counting, Mr. Nkrumah, MP, Ofoase-Ayirebi, polled 155 ‘yes’ votes against 110 ‘no’ votes, representing 58.68 percent approval.
Mrs Koomson, MP, Awutu Senya West, garnered 161 ‘yes’ votes, representing 60.75 of the 265 votes ups for grabs.
Dr Akoto received 143 ‘yes’ votes and 121 ‘no’ votes, representing 53.96 per cent. One vote was rejected.
By these outcome, the nominees qualify to be sworn into office in line with Standing Order 109(1), which says decisions would be taken in the House based on “the majority of the votes of the Members present and voting”.
GIK/APA