Garu-Tempane NDC Chooses Parliamentary Candidate

Garu (U/E), March 17, GNA- A former National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Garu-Tempane in the Upper East Region, Mr. Dominic Azimbe Azumah was at the weekend endorsed as parliamentary candidate to contest for the seat on the party's ticket in the forthcoming elections.

Mr Azumah lost the seat to Mr Joseph Akudibilla who stood as an Independent candidate there during the 2000 general elections. At the constituency's delegates congress held in Garu near Bawku at the weekend, he polled 120 votes to beat his opponent, Mr. David Akologo, who polled 69 votes at the primaries.

The polls were conducted by the Bawku East Municipal office of the Electoral Commission and supervised by some constituency executive members of the NDC.

After the results were declared, Mr. Akologo conceded defeat, thanked the rank and file of the party for their support and pledged to support Mr. Azumah to regain the seat.

On his part, Mr. Azumah said the successful conduct of the primaries was a victory for the NDC in the area, adding that it is also a demonstration of the party's willingness to strengthen its internal democracy.

Mr. Azumah urged party loyalists to bury their differences and rally behind him to unseat the incumbent MP, Mr. Dominic Akudibilla during the forthcoming general elections.

Mr. Azumah, who was imposed on the people by the NDC during the last elections, and which led to the miserable performance of the party in the area, noted that such a practice was not the best and therefore, should be discouraged.

He advised all political parties to endeavour to conduct free and fair primaries during which the delegates would be allowed to choose their own candidates.

He said his immediate task is to work assiduously to unite the rank and file of party supporters to clinch victory in the 2004 general election. He also pledged to work hard to develop the newly created district if elected again as the MP, saying job creation, youth development, health and education would be his priority areas in an attempt to reduce widespread poverty in the area.

Mr. Azumah commended his opponent for a good contest, thanked the delegates for the confidence reposed in him and pledged to deliver if they rallied their support behind him.

Woman tells NRC the death of her husband

Accra, March 17, GNA- Madam Elisabeth Sekyi from Takoradi Kwesimintsim, walked cheerfully to Witness seat of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) in Accra, on Wednesday but almost everyone present at the hearing broke down as she told the bizarre story of her husband's death.

Witness, who said she currently sells cassava, said she used to run a drinking bar, and her former husband, the late Emmanuel Tanor, ran a store and sold cloth.

She said sometime in 1979, during the rule of General Akufo, soldiers stormed and searched their house and accused her husband of hoarding cement, which she said he was rather using for a building project. She said the soldier brutalized her late husband, arrested him, seized 100 of the bags of cement, and took him to the Takoradi Air Force. She said Mr Tanor returned with cuts all over his body and head and informed her that he was shaved with broken bottles.

She said after receiving medical treatment, Mr Tanor continued to operate his store, but was again attacked after the June 4 1979 coup. Soldiers broke into the store in which he sold cloth and took all the goods away.

She said she was worried about her late husband and decided to seek solace with his mother in his hometown in Fasin, but she was informed the next that that he had hung himself.

Although she has since remarried, Witness said the pain of he loss of Mr Tanor is still with her and has been saddled with raising her children and her step children and prayed the Commission to recommend an appropriate compensation for her.

Another Witness, Mr Ebenezer Mends, from Tarkwa, said a soldier from the Takoradi Military Base, named Killer, brutalized his brother, the late Samuel Assah Mends who was then working as a servant of one Mr Anaman, a dealer in gold.

Mr Mends said Killer had stormed the house and asked of the whereabouts of Mr Anaman, and when his brother insisted that he did not know where Mr Anaman had gone, Killer brutalised him, stabbing him with a soldier's knife.

Witness said Killer then ordered his brother to bend down, ran the short knife through his anus, and dragged him to the waiting Land Rover he brought.

He said he sent him to an abandoned shaft at Fanti Mines. The driver who happened to know his father reported later, at the shaft, and shot him from behind at the shaft and dumped his body in the shaft.

Mr Mends said Killer came again and question relations between them and asked why they had worn mourning clothes and arrested his father to the shaft, to shoot him but his father refused to get down to be fired at.

Witness said when Killer brought back his father and saw the aunt in mourning clothe, he heckled her, and warned the household to discontinue the mourning.

He appealed the Commission to recommend compensation for the family, and help the family to retrieve the remains for a proper funeral for his late brother.

The Chairman of the Commission, Mr Justice Kweku Amua-Sekyi, said the Commission's investigators had been to shaft, where the are stories of a number of killings, and announced that the Commission is dealing with the matter.

General Emmanuel Alexander Erskine, a Member of the Commission, said information available indicated that the said Killer is either dead or mad.

He called him an "evil man", while Dr Sylvia Awo Mansa Boye, another Commissioner said he was a "satanic".

General Erskine said Killer is paying for his deeds. He said, " his purgatory is here; he is paying for his deeds", but added "we plead with God to forgive this evil man."

When Mr Solomon Nartey, from Songornya Bonikope, took the Witness seat, he complained of being attacked by two armed men in his village in the night and seized his firewood cart on August 26, 1985. He said they fired into the knee of his brother Awuku Adogadzi, who has since died, and also, he (Nartey) was shot at and received 24 pellets in his thigh, and was subsequently hospitalised for sometime. He said one of the pellets is still in his thigh. 17 March 04