The National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate for Effutu in the Central Region, James Kofi Annan, has accused police in the area of bias.
It follows what he says is the poor conduct of the police in the ongoing mass voter registration exercise.
The parliamentary candidate was arrested and charged with offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace.
He particularly accused the Police Commander, DSP Samuel Okanta of doing the bidding of the NDC’s opponents.
“The police are clearly biased especially the command which is not neutral in this registration exercise. On Monday, Afenyo Markin [Effutu MP] himself physically assaulted two of our members at the registration centre. I reported the case to the police and expected that they would have taken the matter up to court, but they didn’t do that. But when it got to my case, I was taken to court within one hour. So the police are not neutral, and the commander has shown clearly that he is against the NDC and he is doing the bidding of our opponent”, he complained.
Arrest
James Kofi Annan was arrested for allegedly taking on the Chairman of the voters’ registration challenge committee in Winneba in the Central Region.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, Samuel Asiedu Okanta who also happens to be the Acting Commandant of the Police Command and Staff College in Winneba, the parliamentary candidate, at about 9:30 am on Tuesday, July 21, 2020, walked into a meeting of the committee and asked the Municipal Electoral Commission why the committee had started hearing a case without the representative of the NDC.
In a charge sheet, Okanta said when he approached the parliamentary candidate to ask him to address any grievance to him [the Chairman of the committee], the aspirant replied saying “if you are the Chairman of the Committee and so what? You are the reason why we are not enjoying peace in Winneba Town.”
According to the facts of the case as presented by the police, the comment by the candidate was with the intent “to provoke breach of peace or whereby a breach of the peace is likely to be occasioned.”
The NDC candidate was put before court and has since been granted bail.