<<Print>>Sporadic gunshots from some New Patriotic Party (NPP) activists and threats by some who were wielding cutlasses, broken bottles and other dangerous weapons brought a press conference by a founding member of the party to an abrupt end on Tuesday morning.
The activists numbering about 20 were led by the Ablekuma South Constituency executives of the party who claimed that they had not sanctioned anyone or group of persons to hold a press conference.
The press conference by Mr Joshua Attoh Quarshie was purported to call for unity within the party but it turned chaotic when another group of NPP activists, led by the Constituency Organiser for the Ablekuma South Constituency, Mr Kofi Asante, stormed the venue with assorted weapons, pulled down, the canopies and broke all the plastic chairs that had been arranged at the venue.
Mr Asante, thereafter, ordered all at the venue to leave the place else risked consequences that might be unpleasant. Journalists from the various media houses were confused and just as they were trying to decide whether to stay or to go, stones, sticks, sachet water and urine that had been collected in containers started flying from outside into the inner perimeter of the venue.
Journalists and other party members who had come for the press conference started running helter-skelter for their lives.
The irate party supporters warned that any journalists that attempted to take videos or photographs would have him or herself to blame.
After Mr Asante and his team had successfully disrupted the press conference, he now decided to grant the press interview where he explained that as constituency executives, they ought to have been notified of the press conference but that was not done.
“You cannot just enter someone’s house and start doing things without the person’s approval,” he said.
Mr Asante alleged that he had heard Mr Attoh Quarshie in the media on a number of occasions speaking against the NPP flagbearer and that it was obvious that the press conference was going to be used as an avenue to launch attacks on him.
But the convener of the press conference, Mr Joshua Attoh Quarshie said he did not require the permission of anyone under the current democratic dispensation to express his views on any matter.
He said Mr Asante and his cohorts were agents of the NPP flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo and attributed the incident that occurred to him.
“Nana Addo is the cause of the whole thing. I came here with a mind of peace and not to fight,” he said.
He said Nana Akuffo Addo had brought division into the party and that he, even with the last breathe in him, would fight to ensure that the values of the party were protected from those who sought to destroy them.
Mr Quarshie said he would ensure that Mr Asante and those who vandalised the press conference venue were dealt with according to the law adding that he would re-organise himself and go ahead with the press conference later.