The Tamale High Court presided over by His Lordship, Justice Richard Kogyapwah, has granted a motion for an interim injunction filed Hajia Lariba Zuwera Abudu, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Walewale constituency in the North East region restraining Dr Kabiru Tia Mahama, his agents, assigns, workmen and all parties from holding out the 1st defendant as the New Patriotic Party 2024 Parliamentary candidate in the Walewale constituency.
The court has also ordered the Electoral Commission not to submit the name of Dr Mahama to the NPP National Office as the candidate elect in the January 27, 2024, parliamentary primaries for the Walewale constituency.
This order shall hold for ten (10) days where after the plaintiff/applicant may come on notice to the defendants.
Addressing the media, counsel for the applicant, Lawyer Sylvester Isang cited electoral irregularities and malpractice as basis for the application.
“For example, you have people who are dead casting their votes and then the agent of the plaintiff called for recount of the ballots because there is an issue of nineteen rejected ballots [if we had scrutinize those nineteen rejected ballots] then it would’ve turned out that my client is the winner of the polls and not Dr Mahama” he asserted.
According to lawyer Isang, someone who was not introduced to the agents as an EC official walked into the voting arena and handpicked six out of the thirteen rejected votes and allegedly distributed it to the valid votes of two of the four contestants and further ordered that the results should be declared without subjecting the remaining of so-called rejected ballots to scrutiny.
“And so for now, the court has granted the application and has injuncted them from holding out Dr Kabiru Mahama Tia as any candidate elect in the just ended elections until the final determination of the matter.”
“The injunction is interim, its 10 days but you see [ex abundanti cautela], that is out of abundance of caution, we even have an injunction application on notice so that before the 10 days elapsed that one would’ve equally been moved and even with that pending application itself is a restraining order” he explained.
Background
The Electoral Commission (EC) declared Dr KB Mahama as he is popularly known as the Walewale NPP Parliamentary candidate elect after he polled 345 votes against Hajia Lariba’s 338 votes in last Saturday’s primary. There was therefore a vote difference of 7 between the MP and the Staffer at the Office of the Vice President.
The other two contestants in the race, Tahiru Sham-an and Jangdow Mahama had 145 and 1 votes respectively.
However, the incumbent MP believes the election was shrouded with irregularities and declaration fraudulently done to favor Dr Mahama.
