Bawku Central MP's case adjourned

Accra, Oct. 28, GNA - The case in which Adamu Daramani, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central is being tried for triple nationality was on Thursday adjourned to January 17, 2011. This is because the trial judge, Mr Justice Charles Quist, is expected to proceed on annual leave. Before the adjournment, the MP had opened his defence before the court.

The MP has had six out of the nine charges originally preferred against him dropped by an Accra Fast Track High Court (FTHC). The court in its ruling on a submission of "no case" discharged the MP on charges of prohibited immigrant, forgery of passports, electoral registration offences and two counts of unauthorized voting. Adamu Daramani, aka Adamu Daramani-Sakande, aka Adamou Sakande, a Security Management Specialist, has pleaded not guilty and is on GH¢10,000 bail with a surety.

The prosecution's case is that in 2008, after the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, information reached the complainant, Sumaila Beibil, that the accused, who won the Bawku Central seat on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party, had multiple nationalities. He, therefore, reported the case to the authorities and investigations revealed that Daramani had multiple nationalities. The prosecution said investigations revealed that Daramani had a Burkinabe passport number C10098625, which was issued in November 1999 and expired in September 2009.

It said Daramani, as a Burkinabe, travelled on the said passport to Ghana on March 19, 2004 and departed on March 30, 2004. The prosecution said Daramani also possessed and owned a United Kingdom passport number 094442650 on which he travelled to Ghana. He arrived in the country in December 2005 and sought and obtained a Ghanaian entry visa with the Ghana High Commission in London. In addition, when Daramani returned to Ghana in 2007, he managed to secure a Ghanaian passport, thereby evading and abusing the county's electoral system and laws. The prosecution said Daramani used the same representation to get his constituents to nominate him as parliamentary candidate and he was accepted, thereby making them to believe that he is a Ghanaian and filed all the requisite forms. It pointed out that Article 94 (2) of the 1992 Fourth Republican Constitution forbade aliens from contesting elections in the country. 28 Oct. 10