THE AFIGYA-KWABRE District Chief Executive (DCE), Kwaku Oppong-Kyekyeku Kaakyire, has expressed outrage and disgust over the lining up of school children on the streets to welcome the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Saturday.

The NPP flagbearer was in the Afigya-Kwabre District as part of his campaign tour in the Ashanti Region.

Multitudes of uniformed school children were paraded on the streets of Afrancho, Buoho, Aduamoa, Aduman, Aboabogya, Atimatim, Sweduro, and Kodie to welcome Nana Addo.

This angered the DCE who could not fathom how the NPP managed to get these school children on weekend to line up on each side of the street as a herald to announce the presence of its presidential candidate.

He was seeking answers from his district education director, circuit supervisors and head teachers over the move.

It was a tensed moment on Monday at the Kodie Methodist church auditorium where the DCE sanctioned a meeting for the education authorities to explain the action to him.

Mr. Oppong-Kyekyeku, who believed the use of the children was an undesirable political annunciation of the free SHS dream project, was said to have openly reprimanded and castigated teachers in the district for having engineered the outpouring of the school children.

He consequently set up a committee to investigate the circumstances leading to the move to find out the masterminds behind it when the head teachers denied involvement of their teachers.

The agitated DCE told DAILY GUIDE the action was not in the interest of the school children who had no voting rights in the upcoming general election.

As the chairman of the District’s Education Oversight Committee, DCE Kaakyire stated that he had a duty to protect the interest of the school children whom he described as the properties of the state.

In his view, the use of school children on the streets as a herald to announce the arrival of an important personality in an area was the preserve of the President of the Republic, adding that Nana Addo did not deserve it as a flagbearer of a political party.

“Ethically it was not right to parade uniformed school children on the streets on Saturday to welcome a political figure. Some of the children were at the age of three, and they were not under the care of their teachers. It can’t be right,” he stressed.

However, the Kwabre West Constituency Chairman of the NPP, Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, has rubbished the move of the DCE, intimating that the committee’s work would be an exercise of futility.

According to him, the school children were brought to the streets to welcome Nana Addo by their parents who resonated and shared in the vision of the NPP touch bearer credited with making education a frontline issue in this year’s election.

In the view of Chairman Odeneho, the action of the DCE was a form of desperation, since Kaakyire was the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the constituency.

He asserted that the setting up of the committee was a waste of the taxpayers’ money.