Drama At Weija

The Weija constituency in Accra, which is the largest in the country with over 180,000 voters, has been characterized with confusion over who won last Sunday’s parliamentary election.

After voting came to an end in the area on Sunday, the incumbent MP, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway refused to assent to the result that gave the opposition NDC candidate, Sheriff Nii Otto Dodoo a win.

Ms. Botchway who called for a recount was later declared the winner.

However, the NDC candidate had alleged that there had been some addition of foreign ballot papers before the recount, adding that about 25 ballot boxes according to his party agents were tampered with.

On Monday December 8, 2008, there was heavy police and military presence at the New Life ‘A’ and ‘B’ polling centre where the results were being collated.

The EC’s Returning Officer for the area, D. D. Dankwa contested earlier results from 155 polling centres out of the 166 centres in the constituency which gave NDC the lead, saying the other 11 boxes ought to be counted.

He announced after midnight that the incumbent NPP candidate won by 63,377 whilst her contender from the NDC had 61,961 votes.

However, the NDC candidate told journalists at a press conference yesterday that the initial result was that he won by 56, 679 whilst the incumbent had 52,393.

He said he therefore petitioned the District Electoral Officer who allegedly refused to accept the petition.

Later, the petition was received by the Returning Officer on behalf of the EC.

Nii Otto Dodoo said he would later petition the Electoral Commissioner and also resort to legal action since the recount was illegal.

There had also been allegations that the ballot boxes which were being transported from the collation centre in Mallam to Amasaman was intercepted midway by a truck which already had some ballot boxes filled with ballot papers.

Reports had it that when the pick-up conveying the eligible ballot boxes got to a portion of the road, the driver complained that the vehicle had developed a fault and so could not move.

This happened at a point where another vehicle suspected of having the suspicious boxes was.

The men then started to offload the ballot boxes into this other car despite protests from the security person, with the excuse that the vehicle was a rescue car.

Nii Otto Dodoo regretted that the ballot boxes were taken away whilst there were no party agents around to monitor the movement of the car.

He alleged that the total number of votes given in some of the polling centres when tallied was more than the eligible voters in those centres, and questioned why the boxes were not taken to the Weija Police Station where the electoral materials were kept and distributed on E-Day.

The NDC candidate said he would not rest till the anomaly was corrected.

Meanwhile, attempts to reach Ms. Botchway for her side of the story proved futile.