NDC Primaries: Duffuor’s Injunction Application Not Surprising -Kojo Bonsu -

11 May

Kojo Bonsu, a flag bearer aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), says he is not surprised by the suit filed by one of his contenders, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, seeking an injunction on the Party’s upcoming presidential primaries.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Kojo Bonsu said he would, however, not comment on the substance of the case until he had spoken to his lawyer.

“I’m not surprised (about the suit),” he said.

The NDC is expected to hold its presidential and parliamentary primaries on Saturday 13 May 2023, to elect a flagbearer and parliamentary candidates for the 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The presidential aspirants are former President John Dramani Mahama, Kojo Bonsu, a former mayor of Kumasi, and Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, a former Minister of Finance.

With barely three days to the primaries, Dr. Duffuor, who had raised issues with some anomalies on the voter’s register for the elections, filed an injunction application at the High Court on Tuesday, seeking to stop the Party from holding the primaries with a “dishonest” register.

Dr. Duffuor wants the Party to deliver the complete register to him at least five weeks ahead of the election.

In the writ, he explained that data from only 220 out of the 275 constituencies had been verified, alleging that an exceptional list of 74,799 had been created, which could not be verified because of “scanty information” provided about them in the Photo Album Register.

Again, he claimed that, for no credible reason, 3,910 eligible voters in the 220 constituencies had been disenfranchised.

Dr. Duffuor added that a sizeable number of the eligible voters had no photographs exhibited on the Photo Album Register making it impossible to conduct any meaningful verification exercise on those persons.

He indicated that the photo album put out by the Party’s election committee with the “knowledge, consent, and tacit approval” of the General Secretary of the Party would compromise the integrity of the election to his (Dr. Duffuor’s) detriment.

The NDC is yet to officially respond to the suit.

Meanwhile, in an interview with a radio station in Accra on Tuesday, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Chairman of the Party, said there was no basis for the Party to postpone the primaries.

He said the Party had followed due processes based on the rules governing the upcoming elections and assured delegates and aspirants that the elections would come on as scheduled.