NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye, has made a shocking revelation about the embattled Assin North Member of Parliament, James Gyakye Quayson following a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that he cannot act as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Assin North constituency in the Central Region.
The Apex Court by a 5:2 majority ruling said Mr Quayson, a National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP, can no longer perform Parliamentary duties until the determination of the substantive case filed against him at the Supreme Court.
“The application succeeds. The MP is restrained from holding himself as MP for Assin North and restrained from attending Parliament to conduct business on behalf of the people of Assin North.
“The restriction remains until the final determination of the substantive matter. We direct that the case hearing be expedited,“ Justice Jones Dotse said.
This decision was taken in a petition brought before the Supreme Court by Michael Ankomah-Nimfa, a resident of Assin Bereku in the Central Region for the MP’s renunciation for holding a dual citizenship.
Holders of dual citizenship cannot hold certain specified offices in Ghana such as a Member of Parliament, hence it is unconstitutional and criminal for a person to hold dual nationality and be elected into such public office.
But some residents at Assin North have threatened to vote for Mr. James Quayson if he vies to be their Parliamentarian again with some also thinking the revocation of James Quayson’s MP status is a witch-hunt by the NPP.
In view of this, Nana Boakye, popularly called ‘Nana B’, has attempted to dismiss the notion that the NPP sought to deliberately harass the beleaguered MP.
He revealed that his own party, the NDC, once rejected his qualification to stand as MP on the ticket of the party for same reasons that he held dual nationality.
“They have disqualified this man two times on the same grounds when he contested to be an MP,” he said, referencing the term when Bernard Allotey Jacobs was the party’s Central Regional Chairman.
This, he said, to purportedly tell that his own party knew it was unconstitutional for him to hold dual citizenship and be an MP.
He also stressed that, “on the third time, he (James Quayson) came to tell them (NDC) that he has started the process” of renouncing his dual citizenship and that is when they accepted him to stand as Assin North MP.