NPP ‘world bank’ in turmoil

Internal woes of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have further been deepened, following a series of court injunctions that have been slapped on the party in some of its troubled constituencies in the Ashanti Region.

Amongst constituencies affected by the legal embargoes are Juaben, Asante Akim South and the Asawase Constituencies.

Whilst aggrieved parties in both the Juaben and Asante Akim South constituencies have sought the court’s interlocutory injunctions to stop elections from being conducted, those at Asawase have invoked the dreaded Antoa Deity and nineteen other goddesses, to deal mercilessly with any executive who attempts to organize the congress.

The opposition party commenced the election of new constituency executives last week Saturday, to subsequently pave way for the Regional Congress to be held early next year.

But hope for smooth constituency congresses, particularly in the stronghold of the party, appears to have been dashed, as some aggrieved supporters accused some incumbent and outgoing regional and constituency executives of manipulations of the electoral process.

In the Juaben Constituency, for example, two aggrieved supporters of the party- Messrs. Kwadwo Osei-Poku- a polling station executive at the Kwaku Pensah Electoral Area and David Akomeah Asokwa, have secured injunction against a 4-Member Election Committee, set up by the regional executives to oversee the constituency elections.

A Kumasi High Court, presided over by Justice Paul K. Richardson, granted an interlocutory (Ex parte) injunction last week to restrain the party from conducting the elections, which should have come on last Saturday, after the two plaintiffs claimed violations of the party’s constitution, which states that only persons from the constituency could supervise the conduct of elections in a particular constituency.

According to the plaintiffs, members of the committee, Messrs. Alhaji Salifu Zakaria, Brenya, Bonnah and Samuel Cudjoe, are not from the constituency and, therefore, cannot oversee elections on behalf of members of the constituency.

In the Juaso Constituency, on the other hand, one Kwame John, suing for and on behalf of polling station executives of the Asante Akim South Constituency, filed a suit against the National and Regional leaderships of the party, for excluding over 300 old polling station executives from the electoral process.

At the time of filing this report, the executives of the Asawase constituency could, however, not decide whether to go ahead and conduct the elections at the Asawase Constituency after an aggrieved member invoked the dreaded Anota deity on the congress.