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Release
NPP
August 1, 2013
17 PINK SHEETS EXPOSE EC,
RESPONDENTS ON SERIAL NUMBERS, SAYS PETITIONERS
The petitioners in the Presidential Election Petition have
reiterated that the malpractice in the use of duplicate serial
numbers was compounded by evidence establishing the existence of
pink sheets with triplicate and quadruplicate serial numbers
that were used for the December 2012 presidential election.
In the “written address of counsel for the petitioners”, they
explain that “the critical importance of serial numbers as a
security feature which prevented electoral fraud, the swapping
of one pink sheet for another and the manipulation of results on
pink sheets became manifest” during the cross-examination of Dr
Afari Gyan when he was confronted with 17 pink sheets bearing
triplicate and quadruplicate serial numbers.
According to the petitioners, the fact that Electoral Commission
ordered the printing of two sets of 27,000 booklets of identical
pink sheets and, in fact, used both sets in the conduct of the
2012 presidential election, constitutes a grave malpractice
which provided the platform for most of the other constitutional
and statutory violations, malpractices and irregularities.
They are therefore asking the court to “find that, in addition
to the duplicate serials numbers, 2nd respondent used pink
sheets with triplicate and quadruplicate serial numbers for the
conduct of the December 2012 presidential election.”
“When account is taken of the fact that the great majority of
the infractions that ground this Petition can be found on pink
sheets bearing duplicate serial numbers, there can be no doubt
that the use of such pink sheets severely compromised the
integrity of the 2012 presidential election and subverted the
realisation of the democratic will of the people of Ghana.
According to the evidence, the number of polling stations where
this malpractice occurred on its own is 5,591. When account is
taken of the polling stations that registered other infractions
together with use of duplicate serial numbers, the total number
of polling stations affected by this malpractice is 8,987. The
total number of votes affected by the malpractice is 3,508 491.”
The address recounts how the respondents were given a rude
awakening from their disdain for the malpractice of pink sheets
with the phenomenon of duplicate serial numbers used by the
Electoral Commission for the conduct of the December 2012
election.
It is recalled that on the 11th July, 2013, counsel for
petitioners, Philip Addison, confronted Dr. Afari-Gyan, with the
list of 17 pink sheets that bore triplicate or quadruplicate
serial numbers.
Dr Afari Gyan admitted that three sets of three pink sheets each
had the same serial numbers, while two sets of four pink sheets
bore the same serial number. These pink sheets were subsequently
tendered in evidence through Dr. Afari-Gyan as Exhibit “X”.
When asked to “explain triplicates and quadruplicate serial
numbers that we have just seen in Exhibit ‘X’”, Dr Afari Gyan
remarked, “My lords, I cannot understand how there could be
triplicates and quadruplicates, I cannot understand that and
that is why we have to check.”
However, after checking and in a rather despairing attempt to
minimize and deflect the obvious damage that the grave
malpractice of pink sheets with triplicate or quadruplicate
serial numbers had done to the case of respondents on duplicate
serial numbers, Dr. Afari-Gyan, in re-examination on 16th July
2013, tendered as Exhibit EC11, a table, together with Exhibits
EC 11 A to 11E3, the purported original copies of the pink
sheets listed in Exhibit X.
This, the petitioners state, only confounded matters for the 2nd
respondent.
“This is because a critical scrutiny and comparison of the pink
sheets set out in Exhibit X with Exhibits EC11A to 11E3 revealed
substantial differences between the pink sheets filed by
petitioners and listed as Exhibit X, and the purported originals
belatedly tendered in evidence by Dr. Afari-Gyan on the
penultimate day of trial,” the address reads.
The petitioners submit that the pink sheets listed in Exhibit X
were carbon copies of the original copies and were given to the
agents of Nana Akufo-Addo at the close of poll and the
declaration of the results at the polling station on 7th and 8th
December 2012.
“Being duplicates of the original, it meant every hand written
entry or mark found on the duplicates must equally be on the
original copies. Similarly, the originals cannot have entries on
them which will not be found on their corresponding duplicates,”
the petitioners note.
Indeed, the Court had noted on several occasions during the
course of trial that no one was questioning the authenticity of
the pink sheets that the petitioners filed and, further, that
the duplicates that petitioners filed were as good as the
originals in the official custody of 2nd respondent. That is why
upon an application by petitioners for an order directed at the
EC to produce for inspection and photocopying all pink sheets in
the 26,002 polling stations, the Court dismissed the
application, since according to the Court, petitioners had
duplicates of the originals and that the duplicates were as good
as the originals in the custody of the EC.
Differences between Exhibits:
The petitioners have stated emphatically that when they compared
the pink sheet exhibits listed on Exhibit “X” with as the
purported originals of the EC tendered as Exhibits EC 11, 11 A1
to 11 D4 series it became manifest that there had been tampering
with the alleged originals of the 2nd respondent and that, in
some cases, there had been complete swaps of the pink sheets in
question.
“It ought to be underlined that the reason why 2nd respondent
virtually got forced to tender in evidence pink sheets for the
first time since this Petition commenced was because it wished
to discredit the damning evidence of triplicate and
quadruplicate serial numbers which Exhibit X exposed. To do
that, however, 2nd respondent necessarily had to produce pink
sheets that were different from the duplicates that petitioners
confronted Dr. Afari Gyan with through their counsel on 11th
July 2013,” the petitioners note.
Triplicates
Citing the example of three pink sheets marked Exhibit MBP –
3246, CHIEF BELLO INT. SCHOOL, with Code C141004A, Exhibit
MBP3238, APOSTOLIC REVELATION SOCIETY, with Code C141102A, MBQ
171, BAPTIST INT. CHURCH-ADIGON, with Code C140602, all bear the
same pre-embossed serial number, namely 0025195.
However, two of the purported corresponding original pink sheets
tendered in evidence by the EC as Exhibit EC 11A, CHIEF BELLO
INT. SCHOOL, with Code C141004A and Exhibit EC 11 BAPTIST INT.
CHURCH-ADIGON, with Code C1409602, both bore the same serial
number as the three duplicates, namely 0025195. The third,
however, Exhibit EC 11 A1, APOSTOLIC REVELATION SOCIETY, with
Code C141102A had a completely different serial number, namely
0026746.
“It is apparent from the entries on the two exhibits that the
handwritings are quite different and that the specific entries
are not the same. There are cancellations on the so-called
original which cannot be found on the duplicate, a logical and
empirical impossibility. On the other hand, a comparison of the
two sets of pink sheets bearing the same serial numbers shows
that all the entries in each duplicate can be found in the
original and, further, that the hand writing is the same for
each pair. Quite clearly, Exhibit EC 11 A1 is a recently
fabricated document, generated in an attempt to rebut the
evidence of triplicate serial numbers,” the petitioners add.
Again, the petitioners cited three (3) pink sheets marked
Exhibit MBM–000474, MICHEL CAMP JHS, B, with Code C141105B,
Exhibit MBP–3258, Methodist Church Zenu (B), with Code C140904
(B), Exhibit MBP–3264, ST. JOHN BOSCO CATHOLIC, with Code
C141404B, and Exhibit MBP – 3254, GARRISON PRIM. SCH, MICHEL
CAMP NO. 1, with Code C141104, all bearing the same serial
number, namely 0025194.
Two of the purported original sets, the petitioners cite,
namely, Exhibits EC 11E, MICHEL CAMP JHS, B, with Code C141105B
and Exhibit EC 11E2, GARRISON PRIM. SCH, MICHEL CAMP NO. 1, with
Code C141104 both bear serial number 0025194 which is the same
as those of the petitioners’ set of corresponding duplicates.
“The other two purported originals, however, have completely
different serial numbers. Exhibit EC 11E1, METHODIS CHURCH, ZENU
(B), with Code C140904B, bears serial number 0025196, while
Exhibit EC11E3, JOHN BOSCO CATH CHURCH with Code C141403B bears
serial number 0024724,” the address states.
“An examination of the entries in the two pink sheets in respect
of St. John Bosco Catholic Church shows that the entries in
these two pink sheets are not the same. The votes obtained in
words by 1st respondent as well by 1st petitioner are written
differently on the two pink sheets. The name of the polling
station is ST JOHN BOSCO CATHOLIC on Exhibit MBP–3264, but on
the alleged original copy, it is ST JOHN BOSCO CATH CHURCH.
While the polling agents for NDC, NPP and the Progressive
People’s Party (PPP) have allegedly signed the pink sheet in
Exhibit EC 11E 3, those of the same parties have not signed the
pink sheets in Exhibit MBP–3264. What is significant here is
that, since the petitioners’ exhibits are duplicates of the
originals, every entry or marking on the petitioners’ pink sheet
exhibits must necessarily be found on the originals of 2nd
respondent. Similarly, what is not on the petitioners’ exhibits
should not be on the 2nd respondent’s original. In other words,
the 2nd respondent’s exhibit must have exactly the same entries
as the petitioners’. Where that is not the case, as is manifest
on most of the exhibits bearing different serial numbers, the
irresistible and logical conclusion must be that 2nd respondent
has manufactured new pink sheets after the polls. The presence
of a different serial number on Exhibit EC 11E 3 is a clear
indication that the actual pink sheet filled in at the polling
station, is not what was produced in Court by the 2nd
respondent,” the address explains.
It continues, “What truly exposes 2nd respondent is that in its
attempt to rebut the evidence of triplicate serial numbers by
generating a different JOHN BOSCO CATH CHURCH pink sheet, 2nd
respondent produces a pink sheet with a different serial number,
namely 0024724. In doing so, however, 2nd respondent only
confounds it case. For, there are already in evidence two pink
sheet exhibits with the same serial number, 0024724. These are
Exhibit MBP–3266, ST EMMANUEL MUSLIM B ZION, with Code C141902B
and Exhibit MBP-003074, ST. JOHN BOSCO CATHOLIC, with Code
C14140A. The pink sheets for these two polling stations have the
same serial number, namely 002474. Thus the fabricated St John
Bosco Cath Church unwittingly finds company with two other
polling stations with the same serial number and, thus, joins
the disreputable class of pink sheets with triplicate serial
numbers. ”
“While 2nd respondent filed Exhibit EC 11 E in order to rubbish
petitioners‟ claim of pink sheets with more triplicate serial
numbers, this move rather had the effect of deepening the crisis
of 2nd respondent. Petitioners had already filed in this
petition two other pink sheet exhibits bearing the same serial
number as 2nd respondent’s Exhibit EC11 E1 with serial number
0025196. These are Exhibit MBP–3257 KONKYIRKOPE EBEN. METH. CH.
ZENU B, with Code C141001B and Exhibit MBP – 3273, TMA PRIM „B‟,
with Code C140901B 118.”
Quadruplicates
On the issue of four pink sheets bearing the same serial
numbers, the petitioners asked the court to examine Exhibit EC
11 E 1, METHODIST CHURCH ZENU (B) in comparison with Exhibit
MBP-3258. An examination will reveal differences which could
only have arisen from substituting authentic original copy of
MBP-3258.
“It is obvious that the entries in Exhibit EC 11 E1 were made by
placing the authentic original under the pink sheet and tracing
the entries onto Exhibit EC 11 E1. This is what explains the
deepen inscription on Exhibit EC 11 E 1, which cannot be found
on Exhibit MBP–3258. Furthermore, while figures entered on
Exhibit MBP – 3258 bear no „whiskers‟ as it were, all the
entries on the so-called corresponding original strangely have
these „whiskers‟. Clearly, Exhibit EC 11 E 1 was manufactured
after Exhibit MBP – 3258 had been given to the agents of 1st
petitioner at the polling station, presumably when 2nd
respondent hand was forced by the evidence on the face of the
pink sheets listed in Exhibit X,” the petitioners stressed.
Moving on to Exhibit MBP 3268, ONYAI-SHI, with Code C140701, MBH–79,
KATAMANSU PRESBY PRI. A, with Code 140601A, Exhibit MBJ –
000097, ASS OF GOD CH. ATAA SAKI (B), with Code C141401B,
EXHIBIT MB-AB–000020, FINGER OF GOD CHURCH, with Code C140802,
all had the same serial number, namely 0025200.
However, in stark contrast, only Exhibit EC 11 D, ONYAHI-SHI
bore the same serial number of 0025200.
“Not surprisingly, Exhibit EC 11D has the same polling station
name and code as Exhibit MBP–3268. The entries on the two pink
sheets are exactly the same and the handwriting the same, as
should be expected of an original and a duplicate thereof and as
the most casual examination of the two pink sheets will reveal.
Strangely, 2nd respondent filed six (6) pink sheets in response
to the four (4) that petitioners filed. And all of the remaining
five (5) are completely different from the petitioners’ sets. In
contrast to the petitioners‟ set of three pink sheets, this set
of five pink sheets had the names of the polling stations spelt
differently from the names on the petitioners‟ set of pink
sheets. They bear completely different polling station codes.
The hand written entries on these pink sheets are completely
different and the entry of figures on them are equally
different. They bear completely different serial numbers from
the petitioners‟ set of pink sheets. Exhibit EC 11 D1, PRESBY PR
SCH, KATAMANSO, with Code C140601A has serial number 0025199.
Exhibit EC11 D2, ATAA SAKI (B), with Code C141401B has serial
number 0024702 in pink colour, which is not the colour of an
original. Exhibit EC 11 D4, FINGER OF GOD CH. KUBEKRO, with Code
C140802A has serial number 0025191. Exhibit EC 11D5, FINGER OF
GOD CH. KUBEKRO, with Code C140802B has serial number 0010711.
Indeed, the Court will note that 2nd respondent has deliberately
tendered in evidence pink sheets with polling station names and
codes different from the exhibits that petitioners are relying
on in this set of quadruplicates. Quite naturally, these pink
sheets, being pink sheets in respect of other polling station
names and codes, cannot be expected to bear the same serial
numbers as those in petitioners‟ set of four. The entries on the
two Finger of God Kubekro pink sheets in 2nd respondent‟s set
are different from the Finger of God pink sheet in petitioners’
set,” the address concludes.
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