HAS DR AYINE JOINED NDC’S BARKING DOGS? WE HOPE NOT

Since the Supreme Court began sitting in the matter of the 2020 election petition, the court has been generous in allowing counsel for both the petitioner and the respondents to respond fairly to the issues in educating the public and their respective constituencies.

The decision follows a similar grace extended to the public and electorate in the 2012 election petition.

Objectivity

In the exercise of those ‘small mercies,’ we had all expected that counsel for both sides would always act professionally and ethically in reaching out to their sympathisers or the general public, for that matter.

Unfortunately, we started seeing and hearing slanted messages from some of the counsel, compelling the Justices to issue appropriate warning to the erring ones.

The eminent Justices did that instead of dragging the learned counsel before them for contempt.

Almost at the tail end of the process, we are beginning to see and hear again certain counsel straying into dangerous turf in defiance of the edict from our Justices.

Venom

It is becoming evident by the day that all along the motivation for the petitioner griping and going to court was not because he believed he won and the others lost, but because he wanted to vent his venom on us the citizenry and electorate for his misfortune in not winning the election.

That a counsel who may be considered the soberest among the pack should be the one to say that “we believe the justices were wrong” is to underline the depths of desperation inherent in the circus of legal mumbo-jumbo the petitioner and his counsel are foisting on us.

Shame

It is our humble opinion that it is rather Dr Dominic Ayine who was wrong in claiming that the justices erred and that journalists who should be reporting on the events should be the ones to join the NDC barking dogs to read between the judges’ ruling and side with the petitioner.

Saying the petitioner disagrees is quite different from prefacing that disagreement with an emphatic statement that the justices were wrong.

Intimidation

It is intriguing how the National Democratic Congress and its apologists and leadership think they can get a clutch on Ghana by intimidating everybody to the pits of cowardice just so they can sit on our necks and rape our national heritage.

For the records, we wish to notify the NDC that never in the nation’s history has Justices in this land been cowed and intimidated. From Kwame Nkrumah through the military regimes and Prof KA Busia and Kutu Acheampong to JJ Rawlings, our Justices such as Nii Amaa Olennu, Apkaloo Annie Jiagge, Pobee, Taylor, Philip Archer, Emile Short among others, we have had, and still do have, a courageous judiciary.

A political party that believes in good governance should be applauding the eminent Justices for living up to those diktats, in our humble opinion, not dithering under the threat of barking dogs and political fingerlings without any known station in life.

Pardon

While we at the Daily Statesman may want to pardon Dr Ayine for the overkill and expensive goof, we wish to sound notice that Ayine is certainly not above the law in expressing his opinions in the ongoing processes.

He, like any Ghanaian or counsel, for that matter, is not the lawful repository of jurisprudence in this matter. He (Ayine) has his turf. And he must admit that the eminent Justices, too, have theirs.

The resounding chorus from decent Ghanaians against his excess should be enough deterrence to his good self against joining the band of barking dogs which the leadership of the NDC sent into the precincts of the Electoral Commission immediately after the 2020 elections to desecrate the environment.