Why The NPP's Hardliners Will Not Get Their Wish

For many ordinary  Ghanaians (including myself) Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo has never been a problem. He is essentially a good and decent gentleman.


The problem, in the view of  many in our country, is the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) small band of arrogant extremists surrounding him, who   want to ride to power on his coattails.


The tragedy for the NPP and Ghana, is that those tiresome hardliners,  think they are invincible masters of the universe.


It is instructive  that that  small band of ruthless extremists,   talk endlessly about "justice before peace", yet have deliberately  closed their eyes to the blatant injustice involved  in  seeking to use the Supreme Court,   to cancel  the votes of millions of ordinary people -  who queued up for hours  to cast their votes to elect the candidate of their choice, in the December 2012 presidential  election.


It is  hypocritical  and an  act of  bad faith,  of the most egregious kind,  to   seek  to manipulate Ghana's  legal system,    as a  cynical backdoor-path-to-power  tactical political manoeuvre.


And that act of bad faith,   is not lost on the millions of Ghanaian voters,   whom  the NPP's small band of arrogant extremists,  want  to disenfranchise.


Many  of those voters  will remember that attempt to have their votes cancelled  in the  December 2016 elections.


The question is: Why should  millions of innocent and law-abiding Ghanaian voters,  have their votes cancelled by the Supreme Court, simply because mistakes were made by harried and stressed-out presiding officers - who had no sinister motives,  incidentally - at some polling stations?


What compounds the outrage, is that those mistakes by the Electoral Commission's officials,  were not deliberately made -  as part of some grand conspiracy to rig an election -  but genuinely-made errors   made  in the full glare of millions of eagle-eyed onlookers,   each  determined,     as a result of being constantly  admonished to be watchful by their respective political parties during the December 2012 election campaign,    to ensure that that  particular presidential election was not stolen by anyone, but ended with an outcome that genuinely represented the choice of a majority of the Ghanaians,   who cast their votes in the December 2012 presidential election.


In effect, what that  small band  of arrogant and too-clever-by-half NPP extremists,  whose mantra-of-hypocrisy  is "justice before peace"  have done, is to deliberately close their eyes to the injustice  involved,  in asking the Supreme Court to use the genuinely made errors of hapless  Electoral Commission polling station officials, as justification,  for   cancelling  the  votes cast by millions of their fellow citizens -  so that the NPP's defeated presidential candidate in the December 2012 election   can then come to power:   despite  losing what was the most closely-monitored and closely-fought election in Ghana's history thus far.


That is why those who took the December 2012 presidential election petition to the Supreme Court will  fail in their aim - because what they seek  is  unjust, against natural justice  and unworthy  of politicians  who claim to believe in democracy and the rule of law.


The truth of the matter, is that in effect the NPP's extremists sought to manipulate the legal system - to enable their party obtain political power after losing a free and fair election.


Will those who could be so disenfranchised, were the NPP's extremists to get their wish,  not feel that it would be a travesty of justice of the worst kind,  for the Supreme Court to allow the NPP's extremists  to succeed in their aim?


There are many who feel that cancelling the votes cast by millions of Ghanaians, who  duly exercised  their constitutional right to elect the President of the Republic of Ghana, in the December 2012 presidential election - a right that supersedes the bumbling of not-so-well-trained public officials,  employed on a temporary basis,  to supervise parliamentary and presidential elections in about 26000 polling stations countrywide,  widely deemed around  the world as free and fair - can neither  be right nor just.


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