The woes of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) appears to be deepening further as three members have sued the leadership of the party over the suspension of its National Chairman, Paul Afoko.
The three are Tweneboah Koduah Emmanuel, Stephen Owusu and Joseph Oppong Boadi all of Ashanti Mampong in the Ashanti Region.
The three have sued the First National Vice Chairman now acting as Chairman, Freddie Blay, and 29 nine others including Nana Akufo -Addo, former President John Agyekum Kufuor, C.K. Tedam, F.F Anto and Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu.
[contextly_sidebar id=”9oSR0A8kztxHudPLQsdVGWERgMEQv3JB”]The three had earlier sought to place an injunction on the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting that voted unanimously to suspend Mr. Afoko, but the injunction notice could not reach any of the NEC members before the suspension took place.
The three have now revived their suit seeking an interlocutory injunction to stop the current national executives from holding any further meetings which has not been called by the interdicted National Chairman, Paul Afoko.
The motion, filed at the Human Rights Court, said “the decision to suspend was communicated to the country (Ghana) through the media by the Communication Director of the” NPP Nana Akomea.
The applicants say the decision of NEC was later “conveyed to the national chairman by the Deputy General Secretary of the NPP.”
As Mr. Afoko’s lawyers have insisted, the processes leading to the Chairman’s suspension was unlawful and therefore void.
Among the several reliefs being sought by the plaintiffs, is a perpetual injunction to restraint the defendants from holding, attending, deliberating or otherwise meeting for purposes of considering the purported report of the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Lawyer for the three plaintiffs, Martin Gbebu, told Citi News “we are in court at two levels; one is that we have an application for injunction pending; and that will be heard on Monday November 9. The relief we are seeking in that application is to prevent Mr. Freddie Blay from acting as Chairman because in our estimation Paul Afoko is still the Chairman so we don’t want Freddie Blay to chair or hold any meeting be it steering committee or NEC meeting. So those are the interim reliefs; we want these decision taken first before we go to the actual case itself; that’s the writ of summons”.
“The law is clear that even if the NEC meeting they were going to hold concerned the Chairman, the law is clear that Chairman has to convene it so that when they get to the meeting grounds after the introduction, then the Chairman will recuse himself because what they are going to discuss affects him. What happened constitutes a violation and a breach of the highest degree” he noted.
Meanwhile the leadership of the NPP is scheduled a steering committee for today [Tuesday] to deliberate on issues.
But the lawyer for the three says the leadership would be in contempt of the court following their pending suit if they go ahead with the meeting.
According to him, the General Secretary of the party, Kwabena Agyepong and others have already been served the writ of summons.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana