D-Day for Korle Klottey NPP

An Accra High Court will today hear the motion for injunction brought against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to halt the parliamentary primary at the Korle Klottey constituency.

The court presided over by Justice K. A. Ofori Atta was unable to hear the case yesterday because counsel for the applicants, Egbert Fabille, was not in court.

He had written to the court requesting an adjournment because he had travelled to Takoradi for another case.

Garry Nimako Marfo, counsel for the defendants, said Mr Fabille had said that he had not received the processes filed by the second defendant in respect of the case.

Justice Ofori Atta however adjourned the case until today, July 30, 2015 for the counsel for the applicants to move the motion.

Lawyer Philip Addison, who represented presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2012 election petition, is contesting Nii Noi Nortey, the party’s Korle Klottey chairman, who is also eyeing the seat.

Nii Noi Nortey was alleged to have presented a fake University of Ghana certificate to the party’s Vetting Committee.

This compelled some aggrieved people in the constituency to file to stop the election in the court, citing the NPP and Valentino Nii Noi Nortey as first and second defendants respectively.

The plaintiffs, namely Juliana Briandt, George Attor Williams, Mary Crentsil and three others, want a declaration that Nii Noi Nortey acted fraudulently when he declared and submitted to the NPP that he held a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Political Science degree awarded by the University of Ghana.

The plaintiffs also want a declaration that the NPP breached article 296 of the 1992 Constitution when it failed to communicate to the plaintiffs the outcome of the two petitions submitted in respect of Nii Noi Nortey’s bid to be elected as the party’s parliamentary candidate for the Korle Klottey constituency for the 2016 polls.

Among the reliefs sought is an order directed at the NPP to preclude Nii Noi Nortey from contesting in its primaries for the 2016 elections for “his fraudulent conduct which is a violation of article 3(d)(1)”of the party’s constitution.

The plaintiffs, among others, prayed the court to grant an order of injunction restraining the NPP, its officials, servants, agents or any persons claiming under or through and/or any of them, howsoever described, from holding the 2016 parliamentary primaries of the NPP for the constituency last Saturday.