Okudzeto Descends On Veep

Ace lawyer and a member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has chided vice president Kwasi Amissah Arthur for mocking the decision by the petitioners to challenge the legitimacy of President John Mahama in court. Sam Okudzeto said it was unacceptable for the vice president to do a thing like that. Kwasi Amissah Arthur,in an interview with Joy News shortly after the nine justices of the Supreme Court delivered their judgement on the petition in favour of the president, said the victory for the incumbent was to be expected because the petitioners' case was weak. He wondered why the judges were not unanimous in dismissing all the cases of irregularities brought before them. Apart from the duplicate serial numbers and voting without biometric verification, all of which the judges were unanimous in dismissing, the case of over-voting and the absence of signatures by the presiding officers had the judges splitting hairs. Five of the judges dismissed those allegations, but four upheld them. Amissah-Arthur was convinced that all the allegations ought to have been dismissed emphatically with a 9-0 verdict. He said the petition had affected government business in no small way, and ought not to have been initiated in the first place. But a reaction to this on Multi TV, Sam Okudzeto described the vice president's comments as unfortunate. He said to have four judges out of nine agree with the petitioners on two separate instances is a testimony that the petitioners' case cannot be treated flippantly as the veep attempted to do. Okudzeto added that the country must rather take steps to institute reforms to ensure that the irregularities found by the judges are resolved.