A member of the Movement for Change, Nana Yaw Sarpong says many individuals have made far more daring and incriminating statements than the claims by Hopeson Adorye without facing prosecution from the state.

According to him, the arrest of a member of the Movement, Hopeson Adorye for his self-confession of detonating dynamites in the Volta Region to scare voters during the 2016 elections is “politically motivated.”

Speaking to JoyNews on The Pulse on Thursday, May 23, Mr Sarpong argued that the reason for Mr Adorye's arrest was the publication of false news, emphasising that he is not the first person to have made such statements.

“In recent times, one of the senior men in the NPP was on one of the network stations saying when he was an organiser, he campaigned through the length and breadth of this nation. He said that he knows every single ghetto of this country, he knows all the criminals in this country, he knows where the armed robbers meet.

“Now this person is around, he’s not gone anywhere, the police have not invited him. Somebody made a claim on one of the stations - he said that the late Evans John Atta Mills was murdered. He said that if the police do not know, he does because somebody benefitted from the death of His Excellency the former president.

“The person is still walking free. People have made much more daring and incriminating statements that are there. What actually did Hopeson say?” he asked.

His remarks come after the Ghana Police Service on Wednesday, May 22 arrested Hopeson Adorye following his self-confession that he detonated dynamites in the Volta Region during the 2016 elections to help the cause of the New Patriotic, whose membership he bore at the time. 

Read also: Police arrest Hopeson Adorye for ‘detonating’ dynamites in Volta Region during 2016 polls

The arrest follows an interview he gave on Accra FM on May 10, where he claimed to have been part of an orchestration to detonate dynamites to scare voters in the stronghold of the National Democratic Congress to pave the way for a New Patriotic Party win.

In the interview, Mr Adorye, who now serves as the director of special duties for Alan Kyerematen's Movement for Change, explained that the dynamite explosions were intended to intimidate voters. 

He has been granted a GH¢20,000 bail on Thursday, May 23, by the Dansoman District Court, with two sureties, one of which was to be justified.

Read also: Hopeson Adorye granted bail; charged with publication of false news

On the back of this, Mr Sarpong clarified that Mr Adorye was initially invited but due to the actions of the Police, he had to spend the night in the cells, adding that the publication of false news is the least of all crimes.

“You put him in handcuff when you had not even charged him. You put him in handcuffs as if he is a murderer, and has committed some high treason,“ he said.

He argued that the government and the president who is a human rights lawyer have not been fair to Mr Adorye and the Movement for Change.

“We see this as a tactical way of intimidating us but we don’t mind. We are not intimidated at all not when we have come this far and not when Ghanaians are ready to change the duopoly,” Mr Sarpong added.