Three Foreigners Prevented From Voting

Three suspected foreigners, believed to be from Niger, were prevented from voting at the Richard Acquaye Memorial School Polling Station in the Odododiodo Constituency when some of the voters in the queue challenged their nationality.

Mr Emmanuel Attoh, the Presiding Officer for one of the three polling stations in the school premises where the incident took place, said he immediately reported the case to the Police security on duty.

Mr Attoh said, even though, the three had their names in the register, they confirmed after questioning that they were from Niger but had been resident in Ghana for some time now hence see nothing wrong with their voting.

He said he handed them over to the Police security officer on duty, who collected their voters' identity cards and asked them to leave the voting area.

Aside this incident voting was going on smoothly at the three polling centres, where the mood of the voters in the long queue showed an uneasy calm as there were occasional outbursts when some voters tried to jump the long queues.

Almost one hour after the polls opened 51 voters had cast their votes at one of the polling stations while 63 others had had voted in the other station.

Voting was proceeding smoothly at most of the polling stations that the voters saying that they came to the polling station as early as 0300 hours.

At the James Town Police Station Polling Station, Nana Agyeman Prempeh, who was the first in queue, said he arrived at the polling station as early as 0300 hours.

He said some women, who came to meet him went to their homes to bring benches for them to sit on.

Mr Nicolas Francis Okletey, the Presiding Officer for the James Town Polling Station, said he did not envisage any problem. At the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church at Derby Avenue also in the Odododiodo Constituency, Mr Harrison Aglotsu, the Presiding Officer said voting was going on smoothly.

He said the only incident was that two voters did not find their names in the register though they had their voter cards.

Mr Aglotsu said he referred to the master list where he found their names and then allowed them to vote.

As at 0815 hours when GNA got to the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church polling station 105 people had voted.

By 0900 hours two hours after voting started most of the lines had started diminishing.