Mr Tsatsu Tsikata has said he has no problem, in principle, representing Ghana’s biggest opposition party in an election petition if the case had merit.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be asked,” he first told Bernard Avle on the ‘Time with the Legends’ segment of the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday December 16, 2015, but then added: “I can tell you, if the basis on which the representation, from a legal point of view, was meritorious, I will have no problem, in principle, representing the NPP; I think I can say that.”
The former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) said he could say so, “obviously in this sense: you know in my career, both as a lawyer and a law lecturer, and, indeed, in my experience of corporate life, I think I surprise some people.”
“For instance, when I was at GNPC, some people were hired in GNPC, who were known to be NPP people. And I was involved in hiring them on account of their technical capabilities. What they were doing politically had nothing to do with what they were supposed to do in the organisation.
“And so when I was sometimes asked: ‘didn’t you know so and so [were NPP people?]’ I would say: ‘It’s neither here nor there.’ And equally as I mentioned earlier, I have friends and people that I have a lot of respect for – you mentioned J. H. Mensah and so on – I mean who are in NPP but …they were people that I considered I could look up to, so in that sense, I don’t have any problem in principle.
“But when I said also that I’m not likely to be asked, let’s face it, that’s the reality. Within our context as a nation, the level of polarisation, and the representation of people like me, is such that it would be regarded as anathema even to be approached,” Mr Tsikata added.
Mr Tsikata represented the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2012 election petition filed by the NPP’s 2012 presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, his running mate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the party’s Chairman at the time, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey. The Supreme Court affirmed the victory of the NDC’s John Mahama.
Source: classfmonline.com
