Tension is mounting at Metsrikasa in the Akatsi North District of the Volta Region as a result of a misunderstanding over the just-ended limited registration exercise organised by the Electoral Commission (EC).
Mr Peter Anku, the Akatsi District Electoral Registration Supervisor, said during the exercise that “There is serious tension here, serious confusion as I am speaking with you right now. The youth of the town are harassing and preventing other people from registering.”
Mr Anku made the claim when he spoke to DAILY GUIDE yesterday (Sunday, May 8, 2016), a day after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Chairman in the region, John Peter Amewu, also reported of being assaulted by the police at a registration centre at Metsrikasa.
Mr Anku, who expressed worry over the situation, noted that the police had been duly notified to restore order.
Amewu Assaulted
Mr Amewu, last Sunday, told DAILY GUIDE that he had been weakened by the assault by the police the previous day.
He explained that at about 9:30am he received a call from the registration centre at Metsrikasa about the alleged movement of the centre to an unknown location.
He said he immediately drew the attention of the regional Electoral Commission officer, Mr Selormey Adukpo Dogbey, but he (Amewu) disagreed to the explanation given him by the EC officer, which he claimed was not consistent with the report he was getting on the ground.
He immediately moved to the location with Johnson Avuletey, the Regional Operations Officer of the NPP, only for them to be told on arrival that a police patrol team had moved the registration kits together with the registration officers to another location – Wueta D/A Primary also known as Ete-Kope, believed to be close to the Republic of Togo, but within the same electoral area.
After driving for about four kilometres, Mr Amewu said, the patrol vehicle, with registration number GP 3983, overtook his and blocked his from moving ahead. Interestingly, he claimed the patrol team returned to the former centre at Metsrikasa.
At Metsrikasa, Mr Amewu confronted the police and one Supt Hlormenu responded that he only answered to the IGP. Amewu said he then saw some of the officers moving towards Avuletey to heckle him and he (Amewu) then decided to take a shot of the scene with his mobile telephone.
The police, he asserted, became furious and requested for the phone but he refused to give it out. They then forcibly collected the phone and hit his left arm with the butt of their gun and heckled him also.
According to him, they managed to escape the beating, leaving behind the phone. They then reported the case at the regional police headquarters in Ho, where they were given medical forms for treatment at the regional hospital.
Avuletey told DAILY GUIDE yesterday that the NPP Chairman (Amewu) was down. “His beatings were more than mine and so he is weak for now,” he asserted.
. EC Officer’s Response
The registration officer at the centre, John Eko, said on Friday some people were preventing others from coming to the centre on suspicion that they were not Ghanaians. This, he said, led to a clash between the NDC and the NPP monitoring teams in the constituency. Calm returned after the minor clash.
He admitted that the movement was not the original plan. It only came up as a move to prevent the tension and clashes that had characterised the registration process at Metsrikasa.
He said on Saturday they were on the way to a new location at Wueta but were asked to return to the Metsrikasa registration centre.
Police Account
When contacted by DAILY GUIDE, the regional police commander confirmed that an incident happened but said the story he was told was quite different. He said from the account he had from the leader of the patrol team from Accra, there was a misunderstanding in moving the registration centre to another location near Togo.
However, on the way the team was asked to return to Metsrikasa. On arrival, the NPP, led by the regional chairman, accused the police officers of being fake and started taking shots of them.
The commander said the police at the centre admitted collecting the phone of the chairman to delete pictures from it, but could not return it as the chairman was nowhere to be found. The phone was then given to the district police officer.
Regional EC’s Account
The Regional Electoral Officer, Selormey Adukpo Dogbey, who claimed he wasn’t there himself, also narrated that the movement of the registration centre had been prearranged with the political parties in order to reach out to other areas that were populated but difficult to access.
This arrangement, Mr Dogbey posited, was agreed upon by the constituency executives of all the parties, including the NDC and the NPP, only for the NPP gurus to change their minds on the registration day.
Conflicting Reports
Although the regional electoral officer was told the team at Metsrikasa did not move, the district electoral officer (Peter Anku) and the registration officer at Metsrikasa admitted they moved towards Wueta D/A (Ete-Kope). They only returned after the directive of the regional officer.
Mr Anku noted that instead of operating for five days at Metsrikasa as originally arranged, he met the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) in the district earlier on the possibility of moving from Metsrikasa on Friday (6th May) to Wueta, based on some attacks on registration officers and other citizens.
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