Violence at registration centres - NDC, NPP in blame game
Accusations and counter-accusations, with potentially negative implications, have taken centre stage in the ongoing limited registration exercise, as the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) engage in a blame game over the irregularities and pockets of violence that have characterised the exercise.
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While the NPP is accusing the NDC of registering minors and using machomen to intimidate and scare NPP agents, the NDC has dismissed the allegations and insisted that it will remain resolute in checking the NPP from registering minors.
Police blamed
The two parties have also called on the police to remain neutral in the ongoing exercise.
In their view, any compromise of the neutrality of the Ghana Police Service would undermine the whole electoral process.
While the NPP expressed concern over police high-handedness and what it described as “selective arrest’’ of NPP agents, the NDC accused the police of condoning with the NPP and abetment of crime, as well as molesting its leaders in the Ashanti Region.
NPP press conference
The acting General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, who addressed a press conference in Accra yesterday, explained that the attitude of the police, if not checked, would not augur well for the 2016 elections.
He stressed that dismantling vigilante groups within political parties would depend on the perception the political parties had of the police in the discharge of their duties.
Protection
Mr Boadu explained that if the police were perceived to be biased, the political parties would be compelled to protect themselves because they would no longer trust the police to be impartial.
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He said, for example, that from Juaboso in the Western Region to the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Eastern, Ashanti and Upper East regions, regional ministers and district chief executives (DCEs), under the pretext of monitoring the registration exercise, were encouraging acts of lawlessness by NDC activists, in the full glare of the police, without any arrest being made.
However, any alleged infringement by NPP activists, he said, saw the police and government officials descending on them to cause their arrest and at times beating them up.
Macho men
He cited the examples of Juaboso in the Western Region, Ginyaase in the Ashanti Region and Banda in the Brong Ahafo Region where machomen of the NDC allegedly attacked NPP agents.
In Banda, for instance, he said, a car full of NDC activists and their hired machomen went from one registration centre to another visiting mayhem on NPP agents and at times disrupting the registration process, without the police arresting them.
He said in the Ejura Sekyedumase area, NDC machomen hurled stones at a registration centre with the aim of disrupting the exercise, without the police intervening.
Mr Boadu said the same scenario occurred in the Asunafo North and South constituencies in the Brong Ahafo Region where the Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Eric Opoku, and a brother of the Local Government Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda, hired machomen to beat up NPP agents who were protesting the registration of minors and foreigners, in the full glare of the police, but nobody was arrested.
Medical outreach
He said the driver of Dr Hannah Bissiw, a Deputy Minister, caused the arrest of a team of medical personnel in the Brong Ahafo Region who were on a medical outreach programme and took them to Dr Bissiw’s house before they were released, but nothing was done to the people involved in the maltreatment of the medical personnel who were mistaken for NPP agents.
Mr Boadu said daily reports by its activists on the ground were replete with intimidation by the police, in collaboration with government officials, in the Ashanti and Volta regions to beat up NPP activists for attempting to ensure that minors and foreigners where not registered.
He said some headmasters, on the instruction of government officials, had prevented students from leaving their schools to register, for fear that the students were anti-government.
Tertiary institutions
Mr Boadu appealed to the EC to open more registration centres in tertiary institutions to enable the thousands who had turned 18 years to register in the last lap of the registration exercise.
On wrong dates on some ID cards, he said the incidents were common in the Ashanti Region and it took the vigilance of NPP activists to uncover the plot which had disenfranchised a whole community in the Bekwai Constituency in 2012.
NDC
But the NDC has dismissed the NPP’ allegations, saying the main opposition party was concocting stories to cover up its “evil works”.
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The NDC insisted that it would use all legitimate means to prevent the NPP from registering minors in the registration exercise.
The National Organiser of the party, Mr Kofi Adams, said: “It is surprising that they are accusing us of fomenting trouble. Indeed, it is rather the NPP that has employed thugs to visit mayhem on our agents who are engaged in their lawful duties.”
Unyielding
Explaining, he said the NDC agents at the registration centres had been up to their responsibilities in ensuring that minors did not have their names on the electoral roll.
“As a responsible political party, we gave training to our members and indicated to them the need to challenge persons who are not qualified, a duty they’ve performed to our admiration,” he said.
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He said the NPP had been working to get minors registered in their strongholds, especially in the Ashanti Region.
He stated that the unyielding position of the NDC agents had resulted in some of the suspected minors running away from the registration centres.
He said unable to contain the position of the NDC agents, the NPP employed thugs to beat some of them at the centres, citing a case at Asokore Mampong in the Ashanti Region as an example.
“If the NPP is not registering minors, why are they beating our agents?” he asked.
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Fake birth certificates
Mr Adams further alleged that the NPP gave fake birth certificates to the young ones to facilitate their registration as voters.
He said what the NPP failed to realise was that the birth certificates had reference numbers “and as a political party, we can easily expose them”.
“If the NPP is talking about thuggery, it is within that party. After all, its Ashanti Regional Chairman has been accused by one of the party’s MPs of slapping him,” he said.