Lead Counsel for the 2nd Respondent in the 2020 Presidential Election Petition, Akoto Ampaw, demanded during cross-examination that witness for the petitioner, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, answeres his questions without verbose explanations.
In the estimation of Mr Ampaw, the witness’ explanations to some of the questions amounted to an attempt to lecture the court, rather than answering the questions he was being asked in the witness box.
The first witness of the petitioner was confronted in court Monday with video evidence of some National Democratic Congress press conferences where he seemingly declared the petitioner a winner of the presidential elections.
Mr Nketia admitted that he was indeed the one in the video and that “those are my words” but denied declaring John Mahama winner in the tapes played.
According to him, he only expressed his expectations that Mr Mahama would win the presidential elections on the face of the information available to him at the time.
Mr Nketia attempted to explain how he arrived at his expectation.
“… My Lords permit me, in all the seven parliamentary and presidential elections that have been held in this country before this one the presidential candidate and the political party which wins and controls parliament ends up winning the presidency so I…”
While at it, Mr Ampaw interjected and demanded that he answers the questions being asked.
“Mr Asiedu Nketia, don’t lecture us, answer the questions, you can’t lecture us,” he said.