The streets of Keta and other Anlo towns were deserted yesterday in a big snub to President Akufo-Addo when he arrived there to grace a durbar said to have been organized by the Awomefia, Togbe Sri 111.
The durbar came on the heels of the ill-treatment of Voltarians not only in the Volta Region but elsewhere during the voters registration exercise. Voltarians living in Tema, Accra, Banda Ahenkro and other towns and villages across Ghana had their houses razed down by bulldozers in some cases and by fire in others. At some places too, they were assaulted and brutalized all in an effort by the Akufo-Addo government to prevent them from registering to vote in the general elections in December.
The vast majority of Volarians are supporters of the NDC. Ahead of the voter registration exercise therefore organized by the Electoral Commission from July 30th to August 6, 2020, Immigrations officers with Ewe sounding names stationed at border towns in the Volta Region were transferred elsewhere and replaced with those with Akan sounding names as well as NPP thugs who had been foisted on the Ghana Immigration Service( GIS).
This was followed with the deployment of soldiers to border towns in the Volta Region, especially in the Ketu South Constituency under the guise of preventing foreigners from entering the country as part of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
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The soldiers and immigration officers subjected the people of the region to all kinds of harassment and intimidations during their stay in the various towns and villages on the Ghana side of the Ghana-Togo border. However, rather than be frightened, these anti-Voltarian exercises rather incensed the people of the region and galvanized them into going out in their numbers to register to vote.
And when the President who had ordered all the brutalities came calling yesterday, rather than give him a warm welcome which is usually the case even though they will not vote for him, they chose to ignore him by going indoors. Only a handful of residents standing by the road defiantly stared malevolently at the President’s convoy as they came passing by.
Obviously hit by the cold reception he received from even the chiefs at the durbar, the President, in his speech claimed he and his government are not pursuing any ethnic agenda against voltarians and as is usual of him, rather chose to blame his political opponents who he said had created the impression he is pursuing an ethnic agenda against Voltarians.
“This has been labelled a military invasion of the Volta Region. Togbewo, Mamawo, Volta Region is an integral part of the Republic of Ghana, and military deployments in a region cannot be described as an invasion. Some elements of social media went into a frenzy, mostly with old videos taken in Accra and other parts of the world being passed off as residents of the Volta Region being brutalized by soldiers” he said.
“This has been escalated into accusations of ethnic cleansing, and the Government that I lead has been labelled as a tribalist. Whilst social media is a useful tool for information sharing, it can also be, and has been, used to magnify small incidents, place pictures, videos and voices out of context, or simply generate outright fabrications, in order to stir up needless ethnic animosity amongst citizens who are, otherwise, living peacefully with one another.”
As is usual of tribalists and racists (they’ll point to a friend of a different race or ethnic group as an example that they are not racist), President Akufo-Addo recounted the victories of Dr. J.B. Danquah in Ho and Anlo in the election he lost to Kwame Nkrumah in the 50s, losing even in his own hometown, Kyebi, and said for that reason alone, he cannot be against the people of the Volta Region.
The few residents of Keta who were present at the durbar listened to the President in stony silence with the harassment they and their kinsmen elsewhere had been subjected to by Akufo-Addo’s goons still fresh in their minds. And when the durbar was over, they returned home chuckling at the President and what he said, vowing to punish him in the general election this December.
The red carpet was rolled down for NDC flagbearer and Former President, John Mahama, by the same Anlo towns last week on his campaign tour of the Volta Region. The whole Anlo state went agog with the people jamming the streets to give him a tumultuous welcome him when he came calling.
SOURCE: DAILY POST
