Election Petition: NPP�s Evidence Ramshackled � Murtala

Member of Parliament (MP) for Nanton Constituency and a Deputy Minister of Information and Media Relations, Mohammed Ibrahim Murtala, has thrown out the challenge of petitioners contesting results of the 2012 Elections, describing their evidence as �ramshackled�. Speaking on TV3�s news analysis programme Headlines on Saturday, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP cited that the mounting of the witness stand by his party�s general secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, on Thursday scared the New Patriotic Party (NPP). He noted that Mr Asiedu Nketia punched holes in the evidence submitted by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey to the extent that the Minority caucus in Parliament quickly organised a press conference on that day to take attention of Ghanaians off Mr Nketia�s �show�. According to the deputy information minister, the NPP is known to be bad losers and have contested every election they have lost in Ghana. He added that even the 2008 elections, which was organised under the NPP, according to Mr Murtala, was contested by the party�s leadership. This did not go down well with Alexander Afenyo-Markin, Effutu Constituency NPP MP, who was also on the programme. He rebutted that the NDC also contested the 2004 elections after they lost to the NPP. He said evidence available suggest that the elections will go into a run-off and the NDC must prepare for that. The petition currently before the Supreme Court is the first ever in the country. The Electoral Commission (EC), John Dramani Mahama and the NDC are the respondents.