The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has revealed that the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) is preparing to deploy armed militia groups, otherwise known as party vigilantes, to cause mayhem in the Volta region during the elections, saying the recent issue of the so-called Western Togoland disturbances in the region is a smokescreen orchestrated by the NPP government for this purpose.
Speaking at St Francis Teacher Training College during the campaign launch of his party in the Hohoe Constituency over the weekend, Mr Asiedu Nketia said the NPP armed thugs will be disguised as soldiers and other members of the security forces whose job will be to make it impossible for the people of the Volta region to fully participate in the polls.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as far as I am concerned, what is being hyped as the Western Togoland issue is a hundred percent NPP orchestration- not 90, not 95, not 98 but 100 percent NPP orchestration,” he said adding that “As I stand here, I am fully aware of military uniforms having been prepared so that on December 7, these uniforms will be put on vigilante people to come round Volta Region in all polling stations to create mayhem. And then they will deploy more military so that Volta region would become a battleground from where no election can take place.”
The NDC general secretary said elements within the Akufo-Addo-led NPP government have taken more than 4,000 weapons from the armouries of the state for distribution to the party’s vigilantes to create problems in NDC strongholds particularly Volta region during the elections, indicating that for a cover-up, Ghanaians should not be surprised about news of break-ins at some armouries soon.
He recollected how the government deployed soldiers to intimidate people in some parts of the Volta region and Ewe-settlers in Banda in the Bono region during the recent voters’ registration exercise as a precursor to what the government is planning to do during the elections.
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“They deployed the military here and told the rest of Ghanaians that they were fighting COVID. When the military came here, I came around myself. Did you see the military fighting COVID or fighting prospective registrants? So are people from Volta region COVID people? Now if they had come here to fight COVID, on the Ghana Togo border, so what were they doing fighting the Voltarians in Banda?” he asked and pointed out that “NPP will want to do everything possible to make sure that you don’t participate fully in the December election.”
Mr Asiedu Nketia indicated that “Their game plan is simple. They sent people to the bushes to go and train and they themselves went to the bush with cameras to capture these training camps to come and show the international community that Voltarians are training in the bush for subversive activities. If they genuinely were chasing subversionists, what happened to the people they arrested? Where are they? They just wanted to create that first impression in the minds of everybody that there is a significant group of Voltarians who don’t want Volta to be part of Ghana and so they will not allow Voltarians to participate in the election. Their simple thinking is that if Voltarians don’t participate in the elections, then they may secure a cheap victory,” regardless of the consequences.
He entreated the people to open their eyes because “These are people with an agenda that they will never, and I say never allow the full participation of Voltarians in this election. And we have seen enough of that to be convinced that they are hell bent in implementing that agenda. What they are doing with the Western Togoland issue is to find some small grievances of a few people and hype them and use it as a decoy to create problems for the region in the December elections.”
Source: Desmond Darko || The Catalyst Newspaper