NPP Walewale primaries: Police detain six persons over counting disruption

The Police in Walewale, North East Region, have arrested six persons who allegedly disrupted the New Patriotic Party’s parliamentary primaries that were held on Monday, 9 September 2024, following a High Court ruling that annulled the previous election and ordered a re-run.

So severe were the disruptions that the Electoral Commission, which supervised the contest, declared the contest null and void due to damage caused to ballot papers, making it difficult to determine the actual winner.

Prominent among those arrested was Bawa Akamara, former Yagaba-Kubori NPP constituency chairman, who is alleged to have disrupted the vote-counting process.

Also arrested was Bukari Musah (Agent of Dr Kabiru, one of the two contestants in the primaries), Sumani Fatau, Yakubu Amin, and two others identified as Akam and Mohammed.

Bawa Akamara was arrested after allegedly snatching ballot papers in the presence of eye witnesses during the sorting process, before the actual vote counting could begin. This was inside the Church of Pentecost building in Walewale.

The Police, who acted swiftly, with the arrests, also transported the ballot boxes to the Police Station, where the counting process eventually resumed after long delay. However, the challenger to the MP, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, refused to participate any further with the counting process once the ballot boxes were carted away to the Police station.

The arrested former constituency chairman, who was wearing an observer tag, was subsequently transferred to Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region and placed in custody. A police source said, investigations were ongoing with the suspect behind bars, and that the matter was being treated “with every seriousness”, coming just 89 days before the crucial 2024 general elections in Ghana.

Bukari Musah, Dr Mahama Tia Abdul Kabiru’s agent, was also arrested after confronting Bawa Akamara, over the alleged snatching of ballot papers.

Election officials in Walewale led by the North East Regional Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), Gabriel Manu, announced later on that they were of the view that the integrity of some of the ballot papers had been compromised, which rendered it difficult to determine the actual winner of the primaries. This was immediately communicated to the leadership of the NPP.