Early on Monday morning, a high court in Tamale delivered a judgement annulling the NPP parliamentary primaries held in January this year.

In the controversial election, a staffer at the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Kabiru Tia Mahama won by a narrow margin, defeating the incumbent MP, Hajia Lariba Abudu, with just 7 votes.

However, the MP immediately rejected the results, and filed a writ at the High Court alleging incontrovertible irregularities, including wrongful determination of spoilt ballots, over voting and participation in the election by people who had died.

In her reliefs, Hajia Abudu sought, among other reliefs, that the court annuals the results of the January primaries, or alternatively, should order a recount and validate spoilt ballots, which the plaintiff believed, many were her votes, but wrongly declared spoilt.

Summary of Judgment

Presided over by His Lordship Richard Mac Kogyapwah, a Justice of the Court of Appeal sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, the court ruled in favour of the plaintiff (the incumbent MP) granting three of her reliefs.

In effect, the court agreed with the plaintiff that the January election was fraught with irregularities and flagrant violations of the electoral rules and regulations such as the participation of dead delegates, impersonation, and multiple voting in the polls for which reason the said elections are of no legal effect and are null and void.

The three reasons, or reliefs the court granted to the plaintiff (incumbent MP) and leading to the ultimate annulment are as follows:

1. A declaration that the results of the New Patriotic Party’s Parliamentary Primaries of the Walewale Constituency held on the 27th of January, 2024 were illegally declared by an unknown person who was not the officially assigned Electoral Commission official at a time when the controversy surrounding the 19 spoilt ballots had not been resolved thereby impugning the integrity of the purported results.   

2. A declaration that the 27th January 2024 NPP’s Parliamentary Primaries in the Walewale Constituency was shrouded in irregularities and flagrant violations of the electoral rules and regulations such as overvoting and the participation of dead delegates in the polls for which reason the said elections are of no legal effect and are null and void.

3. An order of the court annulling the purported results of the 27th January 2024 NPP Parliamentary Primaries in the Walewale Constituency and further order for a re-run of the said elections.

Abandoned Reliefs

In the writ, the Plaintiff also had alternative reliefs, and in the course of proceedings, she abandoned the following reliefs:

1.     An order of the Court for the ballots to be brought to court and recounted and where the ballots have been tempered with or cannot be procured an order for the re-run of the polls.

2. A declaration that when the 19 alleged spoiled ballots are scrutinised properly some of those ballots are valid votes in favour of the Plaintiff and when added to the valid votes cast in Plaintiff’s favour, Plaintiff will emerge as the winner of the polls.

Full reasoned judgment will be delivered on 12th September, 2024.