MONROVIA, Montserrado – Despite several media reports and displays of evidence linking him to a U.S. citizenship, the chairman of the National Elections Commission, Jerome Korkoya has defeated a motion filed against him at the Supreme Court.
Korkoya survived his first legal test on Wednesday, June 22 when the Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of prohibition against his authority as head of NEC.
Veteran politician and perennial presidential candidate, Tokpah Nah Tipoteh filed the petition.
In his petition, Tipoteh said the petition was in good faith to prevent any post-election crisis led by any party or individual who loses the upcoming elections on the sound legal argument that the chairman who conducted the election was not legally qualified to conduct the elections because he was not a Liberian citizen.
However, Justice Philip Banks denied the petition following legal arguments at a conference between the legal counsels of both parties on June 19.
Banks said he could not grant the petition to issue the writ of prohibition; doing so would require evidence to be admitted to the Supreme Court.
He said the court, however, does not directly admit evidence, except those coming from lower courts on appeals.
He admonished the petitioner through his legal representative, Tiawan Gongloe, to instead take advantage of other available options, through the lower courts. He assured that the issue in the lower court would be speedily adjudicated, given the importance of elections.
Although the NEC chairman has constantly denied the claims, The Bush Chicken has found in an investigation that Korkoya was registered to vote in the 2008 U.S. elections, confirming allegations initially made by Tipoteh.
New Jersey’s state elections website shows a Jerome George Korkoya registered on January 28, 2008, in Willingboro Township, Willington, New Jersey to vote in the American elections. While a few American municipalities like Boston, Massachusetts allow non-citizens to register to vote in local elections, New Jersey is not one of those and only American citizens can register to vote there.
Like in Liberia, voter information in most of U.S. states is public information and can be easily found by searching a person’s full name and date of birth on the state’s website.
Additionally, while Korkoya could have renounced his American citizenship in the time period since he was registered to vote; his name was never published in the Federal Register of individuals who had lost their U.S. citizenship.
NEC has since issued a press statement aiming to clarify media reports of Korkoya’s citizenship.
According to the release, Korkoya denies media reports linking him to holding both U.S. and Liberian citizenships, insisting that he is a Liberian citizen.
The release said Korkoya also described the reports as a smear campaign intended to distract the commission from carrying out its constitutional mandate of conducting free, fair, and transparent elections.
“Cllr. Korkoya says that the ongoing smear campaign is false, misleading, and an attempt to distract the Commission from carrying out its constitutional mandate of conducting free, fair and transparent elections,†the statement read.
Featured photo by Jefferson Krua
