The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Jomoro constituency, Dorcas Affo-Toffey, has confessed that she holds both Ghanaian and Ivorian citizenship.
She disclosed this during her cross-examination at the Sekondi High Court 1 in the Western Region, where a case challenging her eligibility to contest as MP is currently being heard.
Perhaps hit by the evidence and questions from counsel for the petitioner, the embattled MP was purportedly seen wiping tears from her face during the cross-examination when pouring out her citizen status in the court.
According to her, all documents filed by the petitioner as his evidence in chief are correct about her.
The legislator confirmed to the court that she is an Ivorian by birth who was born on 4 May 1971 in Ivory Coast, a town called Adzope. However, she was registered on 4 May 1972 in Ghana at the Korle-Bu Hospital in Accra.
This follows an application filed by Joshua Emuah Kofie, a resident of Nuba-Mpataba, challenging that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP was not eligible to contest as a representative of the people in the constituency.
The applicant’s legal representative, Frank Davies, earlier prayed the court that the MP had held Ivorian citizenship when filing her nomination forms between 5 October and 9 October 2020, which violated Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
The MP, however, denied having American citizenship but claimed to be in possession of Ivorian citizenship, which she said she had renounced.
This made the applicant pray the court to give an order to inspect the documents to ascertain whether the MP truly renounced her Ivorian citizenship before filing to contest as MP in 2020.
Dorcas Affo-Toffey was subsequently ordered by the court to produce documents on her alleged renunciation of Ivorian citizenship but she failed to comply with the court’s order.
This compelled the applicant to subsequently file contempt charges against her for failing to provide the requisite documents.
Counsel for the MP, Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, pleaded with the court to strike out the contempt case and asked for forgiveness, noting his client had no intentions of disrespecting the court’s orders.
A lawyer for the petitioner, Bright Okyere Agyekum, asked the court to award a cost of GHC 20,000 against the MP for disobeying the orders of the court and wasting their time before striking out the case of contempt.
The court presided by Justice Sedinam Agbemava subsequently struck out the case and awarded a cost of GHC 5000 against the MP after her lawyer pleaded his client could not afford the amount requested by the petitioner’s lawyer, noting that “things are hard.”
The court has therefore adjourned to 18 July 2022 for continuation.