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Politics of Thursday, 28 February 2013

Source: dailyguideghana.com

‘Pink sheet’ scandal rocks Chorkor

Some members of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) yesterday arrested a group of suspected members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and officials of the Electoral Commission (EC) thumb-printing what is believed to be some ‘pink sheets’ at Chorkor in Accra.

They were said to have been arrested at a spot known as ‘Alomo Junction’, collecting the signatures and thumb-prints of the supposed EC officials and NDC polling agents who played active roles in the 2012 general elections being disputed in court.

The suspects were taken to the Mamprobi police station but managed to escape later.

This happened when the main suspect involved in the case, whose name was only given as Agyei, and the complainants were being taken to the divisional police headquarters at Dansoman.

One Regina Lamiley France, who together with three other persons effected what looked like a citizen’s arrest, managed to seize the documents and subsequently handed it over to the Dansoman Police where they were made to give written statements.

Attempts by the complainants, who are mostly members of the NPP including the party’s parliamentary candidate in the Ablekuma South constituency in the election, Joel Nii Narh, and first vice chairman Nii Odarlai Bruce, to secure copies of the supposed ‘pink sheets’ proved futile.

Not even the intervention of former Mayor of Accra and leading member of the party in the constituency, Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson, could yield any results since the police stood their ground of not giving them copies of the supposed documents.

Divisional Police Commander Chief Superintendent Tabi declined to comment when contacted by the paper, though he acknowledged that they had received a complaint to that effect.

He however referred this reporter to the Accra Public Relations Officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Freeman Tettey.

DSP Freeman also said he had no knowledge about the issue, promising to verify and get back to this reporter.

As at press time, he had still not called to confirm or deny the details of the information.

Over a week ago, similar incidents were recorded in the Northern Region involving some officials of the EC. The said officials attempted to get some presiding officers to sign some of the unsigned pink sheets and use them as evidence in the ongoing Supreme Court case in which the NPP is challenging the elections.

Although some arrests were made, with the police promising to investigate, nothing has been heard of the issue.