Deputy NDC General Secretary Mustapha Gbande says the opposition NPP is politicising Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoo's suspension in ways that could cause her lasting damage.

Speaking on PM Express with Evans Mensah on Joy News Monday night, he warned that the NPP’s posture and public agitation are dragging the Chief Justice into partisan politics, a move he described as dangerous and deeply unfair to her.

“You are further exposing the Chief Justice politically and aligning her to a particular opinion or argument from a group of people, which is not fair to her,” he said.

“The way they are going, tomorrow if people come out to say things that even border on criminality as far as the Chief Justice is concerned, the NPP will be put to shame.”

His comments come after days of heated national debate and public demonstrations over the President’s suspension of the Chief Justice, a move the NPP has denounced as politically motivated.

The matter has sharply divided public opinion and escalated into a larger political showdown over judicial independence and constitutional accountability.

The Director of Operations at the Presidency said the party’s street protest in Accra, which attracted supporters from across the country, has only revealed a deeper inconsistency in the NPP’s posture on constitutional processes.

He cautioned the NPP to “hasten slowly” before they damage the very institution they claim to be defending.

Mustapha Gbande also questioned the NPP’s outrage over commentary from NDC figures like Sammy Gyamfi and Edudzi Tamakloe, pointing out that it was a pro-NPP broadcaster who first made sensitive judicial responses public.

“Why is it that Egyapa Mercer is accusing Sammy Gyamfi and Edudzi of commenting on the matter when Paul Adom-Otchere was the one who actually serialised the response of the Chief Justice and put it out there?” he asked.

“Why are they running away from that conversation?”

The NDC Deputy Scribe was adamant that the processes used by President Mahama in the Chief Justice’s suspension are fully grounded in the Constitution.

He argued that the NPP, by protesting in the streets, is trying to force a political narrative onto a legal matter, and in doing so, is inviting the President to undermine the very Constitution that gives them the right to protest.

“We in the NDC will not join that fray,” he said.

“They are inviting President Mahama to do a great injustice to the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, to actually subvert the Constitution that allows them to bring people from Winneba and Kumasi to come and demonstrate in Accra.”

Mustapha Gbande also dismissed a narrative being pushed by some in the NPP that the protest is about pre-empting a future constitutional interpretation that could allow President Mahama to seek a third term.

“It is no longer just that Chief Justice Torkornoo was unfairly treated, but that they can see into the future that President Mahama would have to do a third term. And for that, they are scared,” he said.

When asked directly by host Evans Mensah whether President Mahama was contemplating a third term, Mustapha Gbande shot back.

“Evans, why are we being invited into this distracting conversation? Is it in the place of the NPP to determine constitutional interpretation?”

He insisted that Ghana’s democracy must not be hijacked by fear-mongering and partisan paranoia.

“If the NPP believes in constitutionalism, they should allow the process to unfold. But they’re not just attacking the process now. They are aligning a sitting Chief Justice to a political party, and that is reckless,” Gbande warned.