Prof. Kingsley Nyarko will be jailed should NDC return to power - Mustapha Gbande

The Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, has vowed that his party will jail the Member of Parliament for Kwadaso, Prof. Kingsley Nyarko, for allegedly bribing electoral officers during the Ejisu by-election.

According to him, if the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), to which the MP belongs, refuses to jail him, the NDC will take action when they come to power.

“During the Ejisu by-election, MP Kingsley Nyarko was seen bribing an electoral officer. They think we’ve forgotten about this case, but we have not. If they don’t jail him when we come to power, we will jail him,” he revealed in an interview with Kojo Marfo on Abusua Nkommo at ABUSUA965FM.

When asked why the NDC was not availing itself of the opportunity to take up the matter in court but advocating his incarceration, Mr. Gbande asserted that “there is clear evidence that he was seen bribing electoral officers.”

Prof. Kingsley Nyarko, the Kwadaso legislator, was captured by a journalist on camera taking out an envelope from his pocket and dropping it before electoral officers in one of the polling stations of the Ejisu by-election.

The Electoral Commission immediately withdrew the temporary electoral officers and began its preliminary investigations, which indicated that the envelope contained monetary content without disclosing how much was given and for what reason.

He questioned why, after the election and all the commotion, the government and Prof. Nyarko’s party have not taken the alleged “bribe giver” to court.

“Why, to date, have they not taken him to court, but someone who stole a goat has been arraigned before court and jailed?” Mr. Gbande asked.

Background:

The Ghana Police Service arrested Prof. Kingsley Nyarko for election-related crimes and alleged electoral offenses involving himself and temporary officers of the Electoral Commission during the Ejisu by-election in the Ashanti region.

The identified EC temporary officers, George Sasu and Regina Serwaa, were invited by the police to assist in the investigation, and their statements were taken.

The arrest followed a video captured by Adom News, showing Nyarko handing an envelope to two EC officials at the Church of Pentecost Polling Station during the by-election.

Consequently, the Electoral Commission suspended the two officials and called for criminal investigations into their conduct.

The EC, in a statement, stated that Regina Serwaa, a ballot issuer, and George Sasu, the presiding officer, were immediately relieved of their duties after the video circulated on social media.

Nyarko admitted to being the person in the footage dropping a white envelope on the table of the EC officials during the by-election but insisted that he did not intend to influence the officials with the contents of the envelope and expressed his willingness to cooperate with any investigations by the Ghana Police Service into the matter.