Petition On The Recent Electoral Commission Vetting Of The 2019/2020 SRC Aspirants And The Entire Electoral Process

The Judicial Committee
Koforidua Technical University, SRC
Koforidua, E/R

Dear Sir,

We humbly and respectfully write to petition your high office as a matter of urgency and in the interests of the entire student body to place an interim injunction on the 2019 SRC election process, due to some constitutional lapses yet to be properly addressed.

We have witnessed with great shock the level of constitutional violations perpetuated by the current Electoral Commission of the SRC. To begin with,

The current composition of the electoral commission is invalid and grossly violates Article 23 section (II) which states that; ‘The commission shall be composed of at most two (2) students from each faculty, of which nominations to this effect shall be open to the General students’ body.
“Furtherance to this provision, the electoral commission in their own prerogative interest co-opted another person and other members to join the commission which we think is unconstitutional and unacceptable. Co-opting to a commission or a committee in our perspective is done when further knowledge is needed on a particular item being discussed, and not for the assimilated person to hold a position within the commission.
Again, the co-opted student in the person of Mr. Perry is a representative from the faculty of applied science and technology (FAST) and this clearly violates the stipulated faculty representation in the constitution.

Secondly, a Presidential aspirant by name Mr. Obed Mawupedzro Noussokpe and his running mate, Mr. Adamu Abdulai Faisal could not meet the constitutionally mandated CPGA requirement of 3.00 and above for his running mate, Adamu Abdulai Faisal as vice presidential aspirants after the verification process. We believe that before any student decides to vie for any SRC position, he or she should have foreknowledge of the requirements stipulated in the SRC Constitution. Therefore, the attempt in the first place to pick a nomination form by the aforementioned aspirants indicates that these persons want to bend the process and undermine the supremacy of the SRC constitution. Such lawless acts should not be pardoned and therefore calls for disqualification.The electoral commission instead of disqualifying these aspirants after noticing that Mr. Adamu, the vice presidential aspirant did not meet the CGPA requirement of 3.00 and above, the commission rather engaged the presidential aspirant to re-apply with a new running mate as vice president in the person of Mr. Emmanuel Kyei. This contravenes Article 24 Clause C (section V) which stipulates the academic requirement for prospective candidates; as such the electoral commission does not have the prerogative right to determine in such instances.Once the vice presidential do not qualify it automatically disqualifies their candidature. This clearly shows that the electoral commission does not have in-depth knowledge of the office they have been appointed to occupy.

It is also on record that one Mr. Sylvester Nimo, contesting for the SRC Male Organizer position did not meet the constitutionally mandated CGPA requirement of 3.00 and above. The electoral commission intentionally qualified him after verification of his documents. Mr. Nimo further proceeded to vetting and was qualified by the EC per the vetting released results released by the EC on 7^th April, 2019 on ktuinsider.com.

It has come to our notice that the said aspirant has been disqualified by the same commission that qualified him after verification and vetting. This questions the credibility of the electoral commission.

Finally, the electoral commission used its own prerogative and issued a general notice to the entire student’s body on 9^th, April, 2019 to announce the reopen of nomination for various portfolios. Which constitutional provision mandate the EC to reopen nomination when all aspirants have successfully gone through vetting process and are now qualified candidates for elections. This clearly violates Article 25 (v) of the SRC constitution which states that, “In the event of a post not being contested for, the Electoral Commissioner shall open fresh nomination for that position for which voting will be limited to the members of the General Assembly at their inaugural meeting”.
So on what grounds did the commission reopen nomination?
In view of this, Mr. Obed Mawupedzro Noussokpe, a Presidential aspirant who had already gone through vetting picked nomination again and was vetted by a different panel on 11^th April, 2019.