‘Your Case Is Irredeemably Incompetent’- Wenchi High Court Tells NPP

The High Court in Wenchi in the Bono Region, where the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had sought for an annulment of the Sene West Parliamentary election results today threw out the case with uncomplimentary words from the presiding judge.

According to the court, the NPP’s case was “irredeemably incompetent”. A fine of Ghc14, 000 was therefore slapped on the ruling party for wasting the Court’s time.

It then went ahead to continue with the process which led to the declaration of the Sene West seat for the NDC.

The Ghc15,000 fine slapped on the NPP is the second, after its losing parliamentary candidate, Joseph Kuma Mackay had earlier been slapped with another Ghc 6000 fine for filing for an injunction over the counting of the content of one ballot box, only to withdraw the injunction.

The Sene West election results have been outstanding because of a criminal development during the counting of ballots after voting had been completed. A man reported to be an NPP hoodlum had snatched one of the ballot boxes said to be coming from the stronghold of the NDC.

A police officer is said to have fired a shot in response, scaring the criminal ballot snatcher to drop the box and take to his heels. The impact of the drop led to the breakage of the NPP’s seal on the ballot box, a thing that provided the NPP grounds to demand that the contents of that ballot box should not be counted. However, the NDC protested and the ballot box was taken over by the Police which stored it in its custody.

It was while it was in Police custody that the NPP PC went to court to put an injunction on the EC so it the contents of that ballot box would not be counted. Mr. Mackay would quickly abandon the injunction, infuriating the court which fined him Ghc 6,000 for wasting the Court’s time.

The NPP would later today then sue for the entire election to be annulled, a suit the court described as irredeemably incompetent.

Meanwhile, following from the court’s dismissal of the suit, officials of the NDC, the NPP and the EC sped off to the Techiman Divisional Police Command where the last box was being stored. Controversy soon ensued because while the NPP had their key to the box ready, the NDC’s key which was said to be with Baba Jamal, was not available. According to reports, this was so because Baba Jamal was said to be in Accra.

Eventually, the situation was resolved and the NDC won the votes in the ballot paper, leading to the party snatching the Sene West seat.