Court throws out election petition against Savelugu NDC MP, NPP retains seat

The High court in Tamale has dismissed a parliamentary election petition filed against the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Savelugu constituency by the New Patriotic Party(NPP) parliamentary candidate, Mohammed Abdul Somed Gunu.

Following the Electoral Commission declaring NDC’s Abdul Jacob Iddrisu as the winner of the Savelugu parliamentary election in 2020, the governing NPP parliamentary candidate filed a petition to challenge the outcome.

The Petitioner argued that the election which was won by the NDC candidate recorded irregularities, malpractices, and overvoting, hence asked the court to annul the results.

But the Tamale High Court, presided over by Justice Daniel Obeng on Friday, January 20, 2023 ruled that the allegations raised by the petitioner were just administrative errors and did not affect the outcome of the elections, therefore the declaration of the results by the Electoral Commission was valid.

The court in view of that has ordered the petitioner to pay an amount of GH¢40,000 and GH¢20,000 to the elected Member of Parliament and the Electoral Commission respectively.

In a separate case, the petition filed by the Zabzugu NDC 2020 parliamentary candidate, Umar Alhassan against the elected Member of Parliament for the area, John Bennam Jabaah after being declared winner of the 2020 parliamentary elections has also been thrown out by the court.