Sammy Gyamfi, the communications officer for the National Democratic Congress, is confident that James Gyakye Quayson, the party’s candidate for the Assin North parliamentary seat, will triumph in the next by-election on June 27, despite a Supreme Court decision expelling him from Congress.

The Supreme Court ruled in May 2023 that Mr. Quayson’s name should be removed from Parliament because as a Member of Parliament for Assin North, he possessed two citizenships.

The Supreme Court determined that Mr. Quayson lacked the necessary qualifications to run in the Assin North Constituency for the 2020 parliamentary elections on October 9, 2020.

In a statement reacting to the Supreme Court’s full ruling which was released, Sammy Gyamfi said: “As a discerning and objective Ghanaian, judge for yourself if the Supreme Court’s decision to annul Hon. Quayson’s election is fair or not.”

“In all this, I am glad that the good people of Assin North, in whom sovereignty resides, will have the opportunity to do justice in this matter once and for all, on 27th June 2023. I have no doubt in my mind, having been on the ground and interacted with many of them the past few days, that they will not falter. And that, they will vote for Hon. James Gyakye Quayson. I have no doubt in my mind, that they will vote for justice and genuine development.”
Sammy Gyamfi

The party said that the COVID-19 epidemic was to blame for the delay in Mr. Quayson’s request to renounce his Canadian citizenship.

Supreme Court Decision Not Fair

Sammy Gyamfi asserted that a candidate for parliament must be qualified at the time of his election in accordance with Section 20(d) of the Representation of the People’s Act (PNDC Law 284). He elaborated that according to the Supreme Court of Ghana’s ruling, the candidate’s eligibility must exist at the moment of nomination (i.e., when the candidate files or submits his or her nomination form to the EC).

The NDC communications officer claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate Hon. Gyakye Quayson’s election was solely based on the fact that, when he submitted his nomination form to the EC on October 9, 2020, he had not yet received his certificate renunciating his Canadian citizenship; he did so on November 26, 2020.

“Even if we are to go by this strange position of the Supreme Court that qualification must be at the time of NOMINATION and not ELECTION, it is important to remind the Supreme Court that in the Nduom case, they held in effect, that the nomination period for an election, must extend beyond the submission of nomination forms and must include the period the EC uses to scrutinize submitted results, within which the EC is supposed to give candidates a hearing and an opportunity to rectify any anomalies on their nomination form.
“The nomination period therefore terminates after the EC has scrutinized submitted nomination forms, given candidates a hearing and an opportunity to rectify any anomalies on same and has reached a decision on the validity or otherwise of the nomination of the candidate.”
Sammy Gyamfi

According to Mr. Gyamfi, in the case of the 2020 Assin North election, Hon. James Gyakye Quayson submitted his nomination form to the EC on October 9, 2020. However, as the EC was reviewing his nomination form submissions, a petition from the NPP group “Concerned Citizens of Assin North” was presented to the EC in Accra, prompting Hon. Quayson to be invited by the EC’s Director of Elections, Dr. Serebour Quaicoo.

He proceeded by saying that Gyakye Quayson had obtained his document renouncing his Canadian citizenship the day before he appeared before the EC at its Accra headquarters on November 26, 2020. He added that because he had already gotten his certificate of renunciation the day before, the Electoral Commission acknowledged his nomination as legitimate after looking into the situation and gave him the go-ahead to run in the election on November 27, 2020.

“Note that the election was held on 7th December, 2020. Hon. Quayson applied to renounce his Canadian citizenship in December 2019. But for delays occasioned by COVID-19, he should have gotten his certificate of renunciation not later then June 2020. God being so good, he eventually received his certificate of renunciation on 26th November, 2020 as conceded by the Supreme Court. This was 10 clear days before his election. Note that, Section 20(d) of PNDC Law 284 says that qualification must be at the time of ELECTION.”
Sammy Gyamfi