The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ketu South has alleged that over 700 military officers have been deployed into the Volta Region to intimidate the residents.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ketu South has issued a press statement to address their allegations that the military has been deployed into their Region to torment their citizens.
Their statement reads:
“The National Democratic Congress in the Ketu South constituency has noticed with grave concern the increased militarization of our communities and wish to draw the attention of the general public to same.
Close to a week now, we wake up only to see pockets of military tents dotted all over the constituency without any prior communal engagement.
But for the incessant, mischievous and politically motivated harassment being meted out to our wives, sisters, mothers and children, the NDC in Ketu South would have considered the military presence as a normal operation in the national interest.
Our intelligence has revealed that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government in anticipation of the contentious compilation of a new voters register, deployed hundreds of officers from the Ghana Immigration Service, Customs, Police, Military and National Security parastatals to Aflao in the Ketu South Municipality, to harass and intimidate the citizens, as part of their grand effort to prevent the law-abiding people of this enclave, from participating in the so-called voter registration exercise.
These officers are stationed and doted within and along with the border communities right from Aflao Beat Zero to Duta, down to Yame-Lente and Wudoaba are seen openly harassing, intimidating and restricting movements of our residents to the extent of even following them to their abodes without a permit.
We are also fully aware, of their vicious schemes to use these officers to intimidate our Ghanaian brothers and sisters who are resident in Togo and Benin, from returning home to exercise their civic rights as bonafide Ghanaians, when the borders are opened.
We want to assure the failed NPP government, their agents and assigns, that this fruitless but well-calculated effort to justify and vindicate the unguided and oral diarrhoea of Gabby Okyere-Darko, on his ill-informed statement about the number of registered voters on the Ketu South electoral roll, will not suffice.
We are fully aware that the government commenced this mischievous act last week, by transferring known Immigration officers with Ewe names from the Aflao and Segbe borders and replacing them with other officers who can do the political bidding of the NPP government.
How can the government, which has been extremely insensitive to the heart-wrenching plights of Ketu South residents, as a direct impact of closing our borders to trade and effectively shutting down our cross border trade industry without any social mitigation measures, suddenly be able to raise funds to pay and feed officers to harass our people?
We do not understand.
We want to know if the military has changed its core mandate of defending the country against external aggression, to promoting internal security?
This glaring abuse of our officers for political expediency, will only weaken the fabric of our democracy and denigrate the hard-earned reputation of our men and women in uniform who have sworn to defend the people, rather than to intimidate them.
It is so disheartening and mind-boggling to see the very government that has made provisions for Ghanaians leaving abroad, especially those in Europe and America, to exercise their civic rights, to now turn around to deploy officers to Aflao just for the sole purpose of preventing similar Ghanaian residents in Togo, Benin and Nigeria from coming back home to enjoy their civic rights.
Are those Ghanaians in America and Europe more human than those in Togo, Benin, Nigeria and by extension Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire?
We are by this release calling on the media, civil society organizations, our traditional leaders and all well-meaning Ghanaians to condemn this discriminatory act in no uncertain terms.
The residents of Ketu South deserve to enjoy their freedoms and liberties enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, without the prevailing intimidation and harassments.
We urge all our residents to remain law-abiding and boldly live their lawful lives and go about their lawful daily activities without fear.
We would also like to remind the deployed officers, to observe and adhere strictly to their professional ethics even in the face of carrying out political instructions of the government.
Power is transient.
In conclusion, we want to assure the failed NPP government, that no amount of intimidation and harassment will frighten our people and stop them from enjoying their civic rights.
We are reminding the government of similar intimidation and harassments we suffered ahead of the 2008 elections but overcame by producing the highest number of votes in the country.
We are firmly unfazed and ready to prove our numbers even in the unlikely event of compiling a new register.
Our minds are made up and we are ready to vote out the incompetent Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government in the December 2020 elections, just as the NPP delegates did recently by voting out their own incompetent Ministers, Committee Chairpersons and sitting MPs across the country.
Whatever you do, we know John Mahama and Hon Dzifa Gomashie will win massively in the upcoming election to continue with the better Ghana agenda.
Issued by
Bright Dzila
Ketu South communication officer
Source: TheBBCghana.Com
