Bawku Central MP to produce a witness

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Bawku Central, Adamu Daramani Sakande, who is standing trial on allegations of perjury before an Accra Fast Track Court (FTC) has indicated his resolve to bring a witness from the United Kingdom (UK) to testify on the renunciation of his British citizenship.

Counsel for the embattled MP, Mr. Yoni Kulendy, informed the court, presided over by Justice Charles Quist, last Friday, when Chief State Attorney, Mr. Anthony Rexford Wiredu indicated that he had completed his cross-examination on the accused person.

The court, therefore, gave the defence up to November 16, this year, to produce the UK-based witness to testify in the case.

The Bawku Central MP, who is responding to three charges of false declaration by voting, perjury and deceit of public officer, presented an unauthenticated document as evidence of renouncing his British citizenship to take a public office, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

He is currently on a GH¢10,000.00 bail with a surety, but had emphatically insisted that he is not a British citizen, neither is he a Burkinabe.

According to him, he is a Ghanaian born in Bawku, and denied that the document he produced as evidence of renouncing his British citizenship is false, and intended to throw dust into the eyes of the public.

It is the case of the prosecution that the accused person was not a Ghanaian, and does not qualify to be elected as an MP, because he also holds Burkinabe and United Kingdom passports, on which he had traveled to Ghana.

The prosecution further noted that the embattled MP never renounced his nationality of those countries before presenting himself to be nominated and elected as a parliamentarian in the December 2008 elections.

According to state prosecutors, the accused person, who is also a Security Management Specialist, entered the country on December 20 2007, adding that Adamu Daramani Sankande, on October 15, 2008, in Bawku, falsely made a statutory declaration to enable him qualify as a parliamentarian, having sworn a statutory declaration on October 15th, 2008, that he was a citizen of Ghana.

The accused person is also alleged to have deceived a public officer, when on October 15, 2008, with the intent to facilitate the obtaining of an appointment, deceived a public officer acting in the execution of a public office duty.

The accused is also alleged to have, before the 2008 elections, made a false statement in an application to have his name included in the voters register. The accused is also alleged to have registered as a voter when the voters register was opened, and subsequently, went ahead to vote in the December 7, 2008, general elections, when he was not entitled to do so.

The prosecution further told the court that information reaching the complainant in the case, Mr. Sumaila Biebel, a cattle dealer and native of Bawku, indicated that the accused person was Burkinabe, British, and Ghanaian.

According to the prosecution, the complainant, as part of his civic responsibility, reported the matter to the authorities and investigations revealed that the accused person had a penchant for the acquisition of multiple nationalities.

The prosecution further indicated that investigations also revealed that the embattled MP had a Burkinabe passport, number C10098625, which was issued in November 1999, and was expected to expire in November 2009.

The prosecution also pointed out that the accused person traveled to Ghana on the said passport, on March 19, 2004, and departed on March 30, 2004. The prosecution had stated that the prosecution would lead evidence to show that the MP wielded a British passport, with number 094442659, on which he traveled to Ghana on December 13th, 2005, after he had sought and obtained an entry visa from the Ghana High Commission in London.

'Strangely enough, when the accused was returning to Ghana in 2007, he had managed to get a Ghanaian passport, although he was still then, as now, a Burkinabe/British citizen,' the prosecution pointed out.

The prosecution further told the court that the MP held allegiance to other countries, adding that it would lead evidence to show that the accused person fraudulently obtained a Ghanaian passport, in order to evade the country's electoral systems and laws.

'The accused person is an alien twice over. He deceived electoral officers on the misrepresentation that he was a Ghanaian, and on the same misrepresentation he got constituents to nominate him, and his party to accept him for election, believing him to be Ghanaian,' the prosecution indicated.