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Opinions of Friday, 14 September 2012

Columnist: The Herald

NPP Fools Judges, TUC & Churches

It has deftly whipped up the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the Presby Church and some other religious organizations against the Electoral Commission (EC) over the creation of the 45 new constituencies, but the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has indicated it has more sinister plots in its attempt to crush the passage of the Constitutional Instrument by Parliament.

Ahead of yet another scheme to have the Supreme Court torpedo the EC’s move later today, a group of NPP supporters have been arrested by the Koforidua Regional Police Command for staging an illegal demonstration over the creation of the 45 new constituencies by the EC.

The police revealed that members of the group, who were arrested yesterday, were led by Nana Annor Dompreh, Eastern Regional Youth Organizer of the NPP and some Regional Members of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP).

The illegal demonstration, comes in the wake of open interest expressed by other NPP elements including defeated parliamentarians in the yet be legalized 45 new constituencies, and have started printing and pasting their posters despite claims by the NPP leadership that the EC was acting immorally by creating the 45 new seats.

They had written to the police of their intended demonstration on Monday, September10, which did not happen, “however, they convened on yesterday morning September 11, to organize the demonstration without our knowledge which is totally wrong,” Eastern Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commander of Police (DCOP) Gyamera Yeboah, confirmed.

The Eastern Regional Youth Organizer and his colleagues were also said to have failed to notify the police on their decision to call off their demonstration, and reschedule it for another date.

DCOP Gyamera Yeboah, added that the Eastern Regional Security Council would not countenance any act of lawlessness, especially, as the country draws closer to the general elections.

According to the Police, the group has contravened the notification period to the Police before embarking on demonstrations as enshrined in the Public Order Act.

Meanwhile, the Northern, Greater Accra, Ashanti and Eastern Regions Parliamentary Aspirants of the NPP vying for these new Constituencies have already printed their T-shirts and posters emblazoned with their pictures and that of the party’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo.

Notable among them is the General Overseer of the Victory Bible Church, Rev. Fred Nii Adjetey Larbie of Ngleshie-Amanfro, Kasoa, in the Ga-South Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, who has opted for the yet- to-be created Bortianor, Ngleshie-Amanfro Constituency as the Parliamentary aspirant on the ticket of the NPP.

Already, Rev. Nii Adjetey’s posters and paraphernalia have hit the walls and streets of the town while his campaign men, largely landguards, were vigorously seen campaigning in the Constituency.

Pastor, as Rev. Nii Adjetey is otherwise called in the Amanfro and Tuba vicinity, has two of his campaign posters all over the place; one with him alone while on the other one he is with the NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo on it.

The posters were spotted at each and every corner of the yet-to be created constituency, particularly on school and church buildings in the area.

At his Amanfro residence in Kasoa, the entire fenced wall and the building was wrapped with his campaign posters. A Sprinter van, being used by his campaign team, was covered with the posters.

Rev. Nii Adjetey previously contested the Weija Constituency seat in the 2008 parliamentary election as an independent candidate but lost to his party member, Ms. Shierly Ayorkor Botchwey.

The Herald has gathered that Rev. Nii Adjetey was previously a member of the National Democratic Party (NDC) but later defected to the NPP when the NDC lost the 2000 election to NPP.

In 2008, “Pastor” stood as an independent candidate when his demands for joining the NPP were not met. The Herald gathered that Rev. Nii Adjetey’s Victory Bible Church branch at Amanfro was closed down following sexual scandals involving him and some female members of the church, including married ones.

Currently, a new branch of the church is said to have mushroomed at the Kasoa Liberia refugee camp called Budumburam Camp, in the Central Region.

Meanwhile, some judges of the Supreme Court, who have their mandatory legal vacations disturbed by Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, will later today consider one of the multiple demands by the NPP to block Parliament from passing the controversial Constitutional Instrument (CI) to increase parliamentary seats to 275.

The case filed by a member of the pro-NPP group, Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), Mr. Ransford France, who is coming under the cloak of a businessman with a lawyer from Akufo-Addo, Prempeh and Co. the law firm of the NPP flagbearer at Adabraka in Accra, called Lawyer Godfred Yeboah Dame.