Candidates of NDC appeals for Peace Council’s intervention in Effutu

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate (PC) for the Effutu Constituency in the Central Region, James Kofi Annan, has appealed to the National Peace Council (NPC) to intervene to avert a potential violent confrontation between supporters of the NDC and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) over the demolition of his billboards in the area.

He said the Effutu Municipal Assembly had demolished his billboards that he would have used for his personal and party campaign activities for which he had paid the necessary fees and bills to the same assembly.

The assembly, he said, “has provocatively allowed the NPP to erect my opponent’s billboards on the same spots where my billboards were demolished, and in some cases, it is my billboard structures that have been re-erected and my opponent’s posters pasted on those billboards.”

“This is a recipe for violence, and I wonder why after several protestations, the National Peace Council is still quiet about the situation,” Mr Annan quizzed and further questioned whether the National Peace Council was waiting for violence to erupt before it started issuing statements,” he said.

Mr Annan stated this when he addressed newsmen in Winneba, the constituency capital, last weekend.

He stated that the patience of the NDC in the constituency had been overstretched, and that the party would soon be left with no option than to defend itself. 

Alleged brutalities

Mr Annan further alleged that there were also widespread violence during the District Assembly Elections held last year December in the Effutu Constituency, but the personnel of the Ghana Police Service in the area failed to protect the citizens.

He alleged that the NPP brought military men to attack and brutalise NDC sympathisers, even though the local assembly elections were supposed to be non-partisan.

Mr Annan stated for instance that it was reported that an armed military officer accompanying the Effutu MP allegedly slapped a polling agent at the Roman School because he resisted an instruction from the MP.

Another military man in his company slapped an NDC branch executive at the polling centre at Sankor.

“Abena Serwa and Emmanuel Coffie, reporters of Nyce FM and Radio Gold respectively, were reportedly attacked with a sharp knife by one Adams, a known NPP activist.

He collected their monies, mobile phones and other valuables, and boasted that he would kill them and nothing would be done to him. 

It has been two months and nothing has indeed happened to him,” Mr Annan claimed. 

Asked what the party did about those reported brutalities, Mr Annan, said: “I have personally reported to the police.”