Ghanaians cannot suffer the “dumbness” and “incompetence” of the Chair of the Electoral Commission any longer since this year’s general elections are just a month away, political science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Richard Amoako Baah has said in reaction to the election management body’s detection of 105 new errors on the nomination forms of Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, flag bearer of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) who was earlier disqualified from the race.
According to Dr Amoako Baah, the refusal of the EC Chair to enforce the directives and orders of the Supreme Court that Dr Nduom and all the disqualified presidential aspirants be allowed to correct detected errors on their nomination forms for which reason they were initially kicked out of the race, is enough proof of Mrs Osei ineptitude.
“If you’re dumb, we’re not going to listen to dumbness. It’s based on the law, that’s how it is supposed to work. So, if you don’t understand the law and your lawyers are dumb too, then maybe you should find better lawyers and if you don’t have better lawyers, then the Supreme Court will tell you how to do your job and once they tell you how to do your job, you don’t go and do what you want again,” Dr Amoako Baah told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Inside Politics programme on Monday night.
“I think the EC has shown gross incompetence and malice. I hope the court will cite the EC for contempt. When you tell someone that it was an error on the sheet and you state in the papers what the errors were, you don’t come back and say: ‘Sorry, it’s more than that’, because if you had stated what the errors were, the court would have found another way of dealing with.
“… I hope they cite her for contempt. It’s not just incompetence; it is unbecoming of a government agency to behave this way. They are behaving as if they are above the law and this woman from day one has talked like that because she’s incompetent, she does not understand the constitution.
She actually made it clear that the EC is not part of the state. I wonder what she thinks it is part of – the moon? Where does the EC come from and who is she serving? I don’t understand this at all but I’m not surprised, it looks as if she’s doing her master’s bidding. You don’t have the power to willy-nilly disqualify anyone you want, you don’t have that power and you shouldn’t have that power anywhere but that’s what she wants to do,” Dr Amoako Baah said, adding: “This is a serious matter that cannot be overlooked.”
Asked by host Moro Awudu to retract his description of Mrs Osei as “dumb”, Dr Amoako Baah said: “I don’t care how people take it because we don’t understand constitutionality. … It’s very simple; a constitution of a country is like the Bible of the law.
Every law must be based on that one. … When the Supreme Court interprets the constitution, whatever you thought before does not matter. The new interpretation, the new direction is part of the constitution. … If somebody does not understand it, it does not mean that we should go back and take the mediocre interpretation of somebody else. That is the problem of this country.”
Meanwhile, the PPP is considering dragging the Electoral Commission (EC) to court today, Tuesday, 8 November over the new errors.
Lawyer for the party, Nii Ayikoi Otoo, told Moro Awudu that his client was considering the court option.
This follows an earlier Supreme Court ruling on the struggle between Dr Nduom and the EC, over the former’s disqualification from the 2016 presidential race.
A 7-member Supreme Court panel presided over by Justice Sophia Adinyira, upheld a High Court ruling ordering the EC to allow Dr Nduom, to get back into the presidential race.
The apex court on Monday, 7 November also ordered the EC to extend the nomination period for flag bearers to Tuesday, 8 November. It also directed the EC to give all parties a fair hearing to make the necessary corrections on their nomination forms.
It further ordered all High Courts to suspend any case before them in connection with the disqualification of other flag bearers.
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