Pictures of weapon-wielding NDC supporters are fake - Dep. Minister

A Deputy Minister for Information, James Agyenim Boateng, on Wednesday morning sought to discredit a picture accompanying a story published by the Daily Guide newspaper and reproduced on Peacefmonline, claiming it was a fake.

The story, headlined "PHOTO: NDC Goons On Rampage?", was published on Friday, April 13th.

According to the publication, "hundreds of rampaging youth suspected to be National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists from the Odododiodoo constituency virtually took over portions of Accra with offensive weapons, calling for the blood of NPP members who dared to face them in the area".

"Some of them, wearing armbands, bearing cutlasses, pickaxes and guns which they occasionally fired into the air, were chanting war songs. One of the thugs who was later arrested by the police, according to sources, was ordered to be freed by the James Town Police Commander, DSP Franklyn Addae, simply because he was an NDC activist, making policemen deployed to the scene helpless. The posture of the thugs scared hawkers and shop owners as they walked from one point to the other with an unusual confidence, buoyed by the support they enjoyed from Castle’s Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, NDC candidate for the constituency," the story said.

But speaking on PeaceFM's "Kokrokoo" Morning Show, the deputy Information Minister posited that the photograph attached to the publication cannot be a scene in Ghana and was forged.

His remark drew a sharp riposte from the Editor of the Daily Guide newspaper, Fortune Alimi, who called into the programme insisting that the photo in question, is part of a collection of pictures which captures scenes from the Odododiodoo constituency.