The New Patriotic Party’s Ablekuma West constituency polls have been hit by a legal tussle following the decision by some 21 aspirants to place an injunction on the exercise.
The polls slated for Sunday, May 1, 2022, will not come off as planned because the aggrieved aspirants have managed to secure an injunction to prevent the party from organizing the exercise.
The injunction with suit number GJ/07882022, was secured today Friday, April 29, 2022.
The plaintiffs sought to restrain the National Secretariat of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Ablekuma West NPP from holding the constituency executive elections because they believe the processes leading to the elections were not fair to them.
All the three defendants, the National Secretariat of NPP, the Electoral Commission and the Ablekuma West Constituency NPP have been duly served.
However, the national Secretariat which the General Secretary, John Boadu, was yet to be served because he was in a meeting at the time of the visit of the belief.
The twenty-one plaintiffs are;
- Doris B. Yiadom
- Joseph Asiamah
- William Kofi Akakpo
- Samuel Appiah Adadey
- Hammond Abeka
- William Adu
- Catherine Arhin
- Victoria Coffie
- Samuel Fiifi Ackah
- Eric Asamoah
- Christiana M. Afedo [Constituency Women’s Organizer who is contesting again]
- Lazarus Lomo
- Ahmed Ismeal Mahamud
- Kingsford Amakye
- Amoakohene Alexander [Constituency Secretary and who is contesting again]
- Nana Osei Agyeman
- Francis Impraim
- Abednego Tettey Tetteh
- Samuel Tagoe
- David Kyei Boahene
- Charles Agyiri
The plaintiffs complained that they faced difficulty in the process leading to the polls especially during the picking of nomination forms for the various positions.
“The process of picking the nomination forms was floored with challenges. There were issued. The vetting was full of insults and we have written petitions to the national headquarter, general secretary, elections committee at the constituency, to the regional chairman, and up to date, there has not been any respond”.
According to them, “some of the polling station aspirants took the issue to court…we withdrew the matter to be settled amicably but no one has called us till date”.
“We picked forms to contest for various positions in the constituency and after the vetting the election committee refused to invite us for deliberations on the elections”.
The plaintiffs “the committee chairman must call us to notify us of the processes, when, where and how the voting would be done, but this was not done.
“We wrote a letter to the committee to meet them because we were to be given an album for the voting…we wrote a letter to the election committee, chaired by the Great Accra Regional Secretary of the NPP, Charles Parker Nii Odailai, but they said they were not ready to meet us”.
“We are entitled to the album…but all the 21 of us have not been given the voting album. The arrangements for the voting, we don’t know, we just heard on air that voting would be done on Sunday”.
“We used our own means to get a provisional album and about 95% of contacts numbers we provided to them [vetting committee] on the album were wrong. They had changed some of the digits in order for them to say they called us but it was wrong”, they explained.
They further added that “we raised these issues at the vetting and they promised to give us the original album but three days to the election, it is not in”.
“We wrote a petition for the extension for the election but there was no response. Odailai purportedly told the secretary that he was not ready to meet them for any discussions”.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
