The Attorney-General (A-G), Godfred Yeboah Dame, on behalf of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has requested that the criminal charges against James Gyakye Quayson, the Member of Parliament-elect for Assin North, be dropped.
The High Court in Accra is currently hearing the perjury case against James Gyakye Quayson.
In connection with a number of alleged offenses in the run-up to the 2020 Assin North parliamentary election, he is accused of forgery and perjury.
He entered a not guilty plea to five counts of forging a passport or travel document, making a false statutory declaration intentionally, lying under oath, and making a false declaration for office.
The prosecution’s case is that when Quayson applied for a Ghanaian passport, he falsely claimed to the passport office that he didn’t have a passport for another nation.
Speaking at the Professor John Evans Atta Mills Commemorative Lecture in Sunyani on Saturday [July 1, 2023], the Dormaahene pleaded with the A-G to drop the criminal charges against Quayson. The regional events included Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, and Western North.
“As a matter of urgency, I [Dormaahene] am appealing to the President of the Republic [Akufo-Addo], if he has any role to play, that trial should be aborted, and the Attorney-General should as a matter of urgency file a Nolle Prosequi to end that particular decision” and abort the criminal case against Mr. Quayson,” he said.
He insisted that since Quayson was re-elected by the chiefs and residents of the Assin North constituency, it was unnecessary for the Attorney General to pursue the case.
According to Oseadeeyo Agyemang Badu, who also serves as the President of the Bono Regional House of Chiefs, the law has a clause that allows the Attorney General to drop any case if the public is not interested.
He claimed that continuing the criminal trial was an insult to Assin North residents as well as Ghanaians.
James Gyakye Quayson’s prosecution, he continued, will prevent him from performing his duties as a legislator, and he does not believe it will benefit the nation in any way.
Gyakye Quayson won the by-election held in the Assin North constituency.
His victory defied a number of polling-day forecasts that were negative about his election-day performance.
Quayson received 17,245 votes, or 57.56 percent of the total votes cast, defeating Charles Opoku of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), who received 12,630 votes, or 42.15 percent.
Bernice Enyonam Sefenu, a third-place finisher from the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), received 87 votes, or 0.29 percent, of the total cast.
In the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, Quayson won the seat with 17,498 votes, or 55.21 percent, defeating the incumbent, Abena Durowaa Mensah, who received 14,193 votes, or 44.79 percent.
