Baba Sadiq wins Okaikwei Central parliamentary seat

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for Okaikwei Central Constituency, Baba Sadiq Abdulai, has been declared the elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the area after securing 15,323 votes in last Saturday’s poll. 

Mr Sadiq Abdulai defeated the incumbent MP, Patrick Boamah, of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who garnered 14,949 votes.

The election saw a total of 30,332 valid votes cast, with 130 ballots rejected.

However, the declaration of results was overshadowed by irregularities surrounding 31 polling stations out of the 144 polling stations in the constituency.

Challenge, declaration

Those 31 polling stations were excluded from the final results due to the absence of photocopies for the original pink sheets.

Electoral Commission (EC) officials instead relied on handwritten versions of the results, reportedly completed by a polling assistant.

The NDC had raised concerns, alleging that the handwritten documents had been tampered with and showed significant discrepancies.

The EC Regional Director acknowledged the irregularities but stated that she needed to consult her superiors before making any definitive declarations.

The delay heightened tensions, with the NDC expressing fears of potential external influence on the process.

In the wake of the controversy, the Regional Director passed the responsibility of declaring the results to the returning officer, who eventually announced Mr Sadiq Abdulai as the winner.

Mr Abdulai overturned a projected win for the NPP candidate in an earlier result collated by the EC, which was challenged by the NDC agents at the collation centre at the Ghana Technology Communication University.

In the earlier results collated by the EC, Mr Boamah led the way with 20,229 votes, while Mr Sadiq had secured 18,783 votes, with 164 rejected ballots, following the collation of 135 polling stations results.

The contestation of the collated results from the night of December 7 to the morning of December 8 culminated in the disruption of the collation process and vandalisation of the collation centre.