General News of Monday, 9 March 2009

Source: Daily Guide

Kumasi Boils - Daily Guide

According to the newspaper DAILY GUIDE supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Kumasi are gearing up for a possible showdown with their colleagues in the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The irate NPP supporters have threatened to announce their presence and might in the city by eliminating any NDC member that they would come into contact with, a source intimated.

The eye-red NPP supporters, the source hinted, would launch their blistering aggression by first attacking the palace of a prominent chief in Kumasi whom they deemed was an NDC loyalist. From there, they would march straight to the residence of the Ashanti Regional NDC Chairman for a show-down, the source noted further.

The hitherto quiet and peace-loving NPP sympathisers in the city are said to have taken that odd stance due to the recent horrific attacks on some of their colleagues by supposed NDC thugs, prominent among them being Linford Owuo aka ‘Cedi’.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that the NPP supporters who intend to embark on the bloody attacks are mostly drawn from the Zongo communities of Yerewa, Sabon Zongo, Aboabo, Nima and Ash Town all in Kumasi.

According to the source, the numerous NPP supporters are planning to launch the horrendous attacks on March 19, 2009 if ‘Cedi’, who is on remand on allegations of brutalizing some NPP supporters, is granted bail by the court on that day.

The 30-year-old ‘Cedi’, it would be recalled, was on Thursday remanded by a Kumasi Circuit Court for attacking and completely burning a Daewoo Lenox saloon car belonging to one Frank Appiah aka ‘Appiah Stadium’ a popular serial caller of the NPP.

The suspect who was hauled to the court on two counts of arson and robbery pleaded not guilty to the charges and is to reappear on March 19 this year.

Furthermore, ‘Cedi’ was alleged to have inflicted cutlass wounds on the head of Ekow Sackey, the assembly member of the Asem electoral area about a month ago for refusing to give him the keys to a toilet facility in the area.

Last week, Chief Inspector A.K. Fandoh of the Ashanti Regional Police Command told the court that the victim was driving the said car along the Asafo Roundabout around 11:30 am on Wednesday when the suspect in the company of four armed persons allegedly stopped him and demanded his car keys.

He said the victim obliged and was subsequently forced into the suspect’s car and driven to Fante New Town around the OA Transport Services area where he was later bundled into a waiting taxi.

Chief Inspector Fandoh narrated that the victim’s seized car and the taxi were afterwards driven to the Asem School Park where the suspect and his accomplices stole GH¢2,750 from it and later set it ablaze, burning it beyond recognition.

He said after the condemnable act, the victim was driven in the same taxi from Asem School through Amakom towards an unknown destination but was rescued by some passers-by who heard him scream for help from the taxi.

Chief Inspector Fandoh said the suspect who operates a gymnasium at the Asem School Park area was previously being sought by the police for his alleged assault on Ekow Sackey.