Audio Attachment Listen to Asiedu Nketiah and Ohene Ntow go at each other in the discussion with Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah

The National Democratic Congress has accused the police of being in cahoots with the New Patriotic Party to swing the December polls.

NDC General Secretary, Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah told Joy FM that even though he was not privy to any meeting or documentary evidence to back the allegation, there are clear infractions that suggest so.

“We can only draw conclusions from the pattern of the behaviour of the police service over the years and then particularly during this registration exercise and it seems to be pointing in that direction, that somehow the police service or some of them have decided to work as the security arm of the ruling NPP rather than protecting the whole citizenry.”

Asiedu Nketiah said reports from the Northern, Ashanti, Volta and Brong Ahafo regions, “all seem to be in a pattern that suggests that the police are not out to play a fair game as far as this elections are concerned."

The General Secretary who was speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show via phone, said he would not know if any of his colleagues had any evidence on the claims but added that the latest in a series of acts calculated at achieving the objective was recorded only yesterday in the Ashanti Region.

“We all know the stories that were coming from the Ashanti Region, NPP’s attempt to bus people from other parts of the country to go and register and some of the NDC people resisting it and it came to a point where the regional police command organized police escort for the busses to go to Sekyedumasi to go and register.

“I’ve just been informed that last night some unidentified police personnel went and broke into the houses of some NDC people (at Ejura Sekyedumasi) and effected their arrest. When the regional commander was contacted this morning he claimed that he was not aware of the action before it took place, however once it has taken place he is going to work on it and ensure that those people are released.”

“Now you go to the Volta Region, about four days ago or so, there was also another case like that where the regional commander, Derry, instructed a district commander to effect certain arrests of NDC supporters. The District Commander said he does not have any evidence of the commission of any crime by anybody so he couldn’t undertake that arrest. And then the Regional Commander had to move with troops to Ho to go and effect arrest of NDC supporters.”

In another instance, Asiedu Nketiah said the police turned a blind eye when an NDC MP (Eric Opoku, MP for Asunafo South) came under siege from NPP thugs at Sankore in the Brong Ahafo Region, with the police rather escorting the thugs to carry on with their activities and the thugs claiming that they are in government and that the police are their security.

Nana Ohene Ntow: It is irresponsible

	Nana Ohene Ntow

However, NPP General Secretary, Nana Ohene Ntow, also on the phone, condemned the allegations as ‘ridiculous’, ‘preposterous’ ‘dangerous’, ‘ambiguous’ and ‘irresponsible’ coming from a major party as the NDC.

He also called the allegations as lies and said while he was not aware of any meeting between the NPP and the police, he did not find it illegal for any group to meet with the police safe for what subject the two parties discuss.

Ohene Ntow said while it was becoming characteristic of the NDC throwing wild allegations, the issues raised were serious and required thorough attention.

“This very dangerous and it is quite irresponsible for the main opposition party to persistently engage in a process to undermine an election that is just ahead of us. I think it is quite dangerous and we have to be very careful.”

He said he did not know of any connivance or harassment, and urged that the matter “ought not to end here right now as we speak. I am saying that these are serious allegations and it conforms to a certain pattern by the NDC. I don’t know if they are quite certain now that they would lose the election and therefore they should create conditions to cause confusion and to create uncertainties in the minds of Ghanaians but you see this is very dangerous and this is very irresponsible. This is not the way a responsible political party who wants to contribute to a peaceful election process, this is not the way they should behave.”



Story by Isaac Yeboah