Release our Ledzokuku Chair, Organiser now – G/A NDC
The National Democratic Congress’ Greater Accra arm has demanded the immediate release of its Ledzokuku Constituency Chair and Organiser, Mr Joseph Mensah and Mr James Narh, who were detained by the Accra Regional Police Command following the alleged ransacking of the party’s parliamentary candidate’s office by some army personnel.
According to the biggest opposition party, the army men stormed Mr Benjamin Ayiku Narh’s office at Teshie on suspicion that he was secretly registering voters there.
At a press conference on Monday, 20 July 2020, the Deputy Greater Accra Regional Youth Organiser of the party, Mr Amos Blessing Amorse condemned the brutality meted out to its supporters and candidates in the ongoing registration exercising, saying: “The latest of such vicious display of state-sponsored attack on innocent citizens, which has necessitated this press briefing, ladies and gentlemen, was an unwarranted, needless, jejune and superfluous invasion of a supermarket and filling station, Maxxon Supermarket and filling station, owned by our parliamentary candidate for Ledzokuku Constituency, Ben Ayiku Narh at Anumantu, Teshie Tsuibleoo on Sunday, July 19, 2020, at about 7:00 pm.”
“For the uninitiated, Maxxon Supermarket and filling station, like any other filing station, is a public place where people from all walks of life are at liberty to drive or walk in to buy items of their choice. It is, however, important to point out that, the same building houses the private office of our candidate and incoming MP for Ledzokuku, Ben Ayiku. Needless to say, it is an open secret that strategic political meetings of the PC are held there. It is, therefore, not out of place to spot known political heads of the NDC there on any day.”
According to him, when the voter registration exercise began, Mr Ayiku Narh agreed to use his office as a ‘collation centre’. He said on Sunday, 19 July 2020, the candidate and some party executives arranged to meet some traditional leaders in his office in the evening.
“While the meeting was ongoing, our agents came to the office with printouts for Day One of the third phase of the ongoing exercise. While at it, a four-member military patrol team from the Teshie Southern Command, armed to the teeth, led by one Captain Dominic N. Nakpaja, together with other un-uniformed heavily built men, stormed the office.”
“The officers, together with the NPP hoodlums, obviously acting on the instructions of the failed MP for Ledzokuku, Dr Bernard Oko-Boye, locked up our PC, traditional leaders and all those in the office and held them incommunicado. For a moment, the place was turned into a scene akin to invasion by armed robbers. The officers said they had instruction from the dreadful but unknown inaudible ‘orders from above’ to search the office and seize the supposed registration machines.”
Mr Amorse said despite the resistance, the military personnel led by Captain Nakpaja succeeded in confiscating the desktop computer and EC’s printouts from the various registration centres for the first day of the third phase.
He said when the party’s Ledzokuku Chairman and Organiser followed up the issue at the Accra Central Police command where Captain Nakpaja said he had lodged a complaint, “the police CID in charge” said they had been “instructed by the powers that be to detain” the two executives “for reasons or crime we are yet to be told”.
“We demand that our Constituency Chairman, Organiser and any other person being detained in respect of this false and unintelligent allegation be released immediately. We do not expect anybody to ask us what we will do when they are not released. Whoever wants to know what we will do in the unlikely event they are not released should ready him or herself to witness what will happen thereof,” Mr Amorse said.