NDC Wins Tolon Seat

Tamale -- The National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for the Tolon Constituency in the Tolon/Kumbungu District of the Northern Region, Mr Abdul-Razak Umar, has been declared the Member of Parliament (MP)-elect for that constituency.

This was after the re-collation of the results, supervised by the Northern Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr Isaac Kofi Asomaning, and representatives of the various parties. Mr Abdul-Razak polled 19,124 votes. Alhaji Adam Iddrisu, who stood on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), had 12,359 votes, while the Convention People?s Party (CPP) candidate received 612 votes.


The Returning Officer for the area, Mr Salifu Yahaya, declared the results at the EC office in Tamale on Tuesday amid tight security. According to Mr Yahaya, the total number of polling stations was 79 but said the office was able to retrieve results from 75 stations.


He, however, made it clear that the entire number of registered voters in the remaining four polling stations, which was 1,825, could not alter the results when added to votes for the second candidate. While representatives of the NDC and the CPP accepted and signed the result sheet, their NPP colleagues refused to sign it.

They explained that they did not believe the authenticity of the results because, according to them, the EC had earlier stated that the ballot boxes had been burnt.


However, Mr Asomaning, on his part, explained that after some people had destroyed some ballot papers at the collation centre at Tolon, the EC appealed to all the presiding officers to submit copies of their results, which some voluntarily did.


When asked about the results of the remaining two constituencies, Zabzugu/Tatale and Yapei/Kusawgu, the director said they would soon be declared. The Tolon Constituency was among the five constituencies nationwide whose results could not be declared immediately after the general election due to some alleged irregularities.