By Cecil Mensah

The call for peace before, during and after the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections appears not to be yielding any fruits at all as some parties have started rolling out their sinister agenda to win power “at all cost”.

Agents of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are living up to the “All-Die-Be -Die” agenda of their flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo, as they have burnt into ashes a vehicle belonging to a National Democratic Congress (NDC) activist.

The NPP goons trailed one of the polling agents of the NDC, in the Ablekuma South Constituency, where Lawyer Ursula Owusu is the NPP Parliamentary candidate, and burnt the vehicle beyond recognition.

This was after the NDC agent by name Dickson Lekeh, for fear of his life, dashed into a bush near the Korle-Bu Polyclinic in Accra.

The burnt remains of the VW Jetta saloon car, with registration number GR 599 Z, is now a scrap material. It has been dumped at a portion of the road not far from the main Korle-Bu traffic light.

When The Herald visited the area, the destroyed vehicle was pulled off the main Obestebi-Lamptey Circle and the Korle-Bu Mortuary Road and tossed onto the pavement to make way for traffic to flow without any hindrance.

Narrating his ordeal to The Herald, Mr. Lekeh said two gentlemen, believed to be NPP supporters, pursued him from Adabraka and poured petrol on the vehicle when it developed a fault in the area near the Korle-Bu Polyclinic.

According to him he was returning home after visiting a friend in Adabraka, when he realized that a group of young men driving in an unidentified vehicle were following him. He attempted to park his car, and they also did same.

He said he became alarmed by the movement of the car following him, and decided to take the Korle-Bu mortuary road, which had a police station close by to report the conduct of the people, tailing him to the police.

He said along the way the car started jerking. ‘’So, to save my life I abandoned the vehicle in the middle of the road and bolted but while running, I saw two heavily built young men come out of the unidentified vehicle that was initially trailing me and poured a substance on my car and set it ablaze ” he said

He said he had reported the incident, to the Korle-Bu Police and the necessary investigations are ongoing. The investigator was not available when The Herald visited the police station to speak with him.

When The Herald visited the scene of the incident, the burnt vehicle had been rolled over onto the pavement.

Mr. Lekeh, had since the start of the Biometric Registration exercise in the Ablekuma South Constituency played a key role in ensuring that the NPP did not register bused aliens and minors, into the Dansoman area.

Mr. Dickson Lekeh, told The Herald in an interview that prior to the incident of losing his car, he suffered various attacks from some NPP goons in the constituency with others making veiled threats on his life.

He said on March 27, 2012, he suffered the same incident, when some three people, believed to be NPP supporters, riding on an unregistered motor bike crossed his vehicle without any provocation, and warned him to desist from manning the various polling stations in the Constituency..

Meanwhile, reports reaching The Herald, from the Adetan Constituency, in the Greater Accra Region, say that some NPP goons in the Constituency, where Madam Frances Essiam is the NPP parliamentary candidate, are rolling out their version of the “All-Die-Be-Die’’ agenda by defacing the posters of Emmanuel Nii Ashie Moore, the NDC parliamentary candidate of the Constituency and that of the President, John Evans Atta-Mills.

Information available to The Herald says that the issue had been reported to the Adentan police for the necessary investigations into the matter.

Other reliable reports reaching The Herald indicate that the same offences are being replicated in the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi by NPP goons, who are preventing people, believed to be of Northern origin from participating in the ongoing Biometric Registration exercise.

The National Youth Organizer of the ruling NDC, who visited the Ashanti Region last week to monitor registration, was unhappy at the spate of violence at some biometric registration centres and has called for peace.

Ludwik Hlordze told Luv FM’s Elton John Brobbey that leaders of political parties must talk to their agents to allow peace to prevail.

He was reacting to reports of violence at Asokwa, Kumasi, where some polling agents were said to have been beaten up on Thursday by some unidentified persons. They were ‘accused’ of challenging the nationalities of some individuals who had gone to register.

On Friday policemen were dispatched to the various polling centres to ensure peace in the Constituency during the process.

Brobbey said there is relative calm at the centres with the visible presence of the police and other law enforcement agencies.

The Youth Organiser of the NDC was also present in the Constituency assessing the progress of the exercise.

Hlordze in an interview said:“I am disappointed about the way things are going on in the Asokwa constituency where thugs are just moving in a car, stop at a polling station and start beating anybody they meet at the polling station.”

“My worry is that people come there and then the agents can just get up and say that we are not comfortable with this person. They sack them; they organize people to come and beat people who are in the queue to register just because they don’t like their faces or they don’t speak a particular language,” he alleged.

He said there are rules and regulations, and people must be ready to use the challenge forms if it is a case where they suspect the nationality or age of the person about to register.

“The thuggery must stop. The beating must stop. Let the political parties talk to their agents. Let people stop organizing people just to beat people at the polling station. It is not helping the exercise at all,” he said.

In a related incident, six machomen, believed to be agents of Adjoa Sarfo, the NPP parliamentary candidate for Dome—Kwabenya Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, are being tried in the courts for terrorizing people at registration centres in the Constituency.