General News of Friday, 4 September 2020

Source: ghanaiantimes.com.gh

NDC demands justice for victims of electoral violence

General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) yesterday called on the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to show commitment to the fight against vigilantism by ensuring justice for Silas Wulo Chameh, the teacher trainee graduate who was murdered at Banda in the Bono Region, during the just ended new voters registration exercise.

According to the party, justice for Mr Chameh was the surest way of banishing vigilantism and electoral violence from our country, and the President must demonstrate his commitment beyond the usual lip-service.

Addressing a news conference in Accra yesterday, the General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia said, “The NDC will like to appeal to all peace loving Ghanaians to join the fight for justice for innocent Silas Wulo Chameh who was brutally murdered by the NPP hoodlums.”

He explained that, the 2020 voter’s registration would be recorded as the most violent in the country’s history, stressing that two deaths were recorded during the process, as well as incidents of violence in some parts of the country.

Mr Nketia called on all Ghanaians and international bodies to ensure that measures were put in place to avoid any act of violence and injustice in the country to safeguard the country’s democracy.

He also asked the President and the Electoral Commission to ensure that the newly compiled voters’ register would be credible for this year’s elections, by deleting the names of 66 persons believed to Ivoirians who were captured onto the electoral roll and sanction them appropriately.

“Let me use this opportunity to invite the International Community to impress upon Akufo-Addo’s government and the relevant state institutions to take immediate steps to abandon any grand agenda of collusion with the NPP to perpetrate violence, intimidation and injustice on the people of this country,” he said.

“The NDC impresses upon the President and the EC to walk their talk by ridding the new voter register of 66 Ivoirians who were surreptitiously brought in by the NPP parliamentary candidate in Banda to register and punish severely all the perpetrators involved,” he added.

The NDC General Secretary also accused President Akufo-Addo of creating the impression that the just-ended voters’ registration exercise was conducted without any violent incidents.

According to him, the President had on different media platforms indicated that the conduct of the exercise was peaceful, while ignoring pockets of irregularities which characterised the process.

“His Excellency has made several attempts to commend the peaceful nature of the registration exercise without mentioning a single act of violence during the exercise,e including that which was perpetrated by his own appointee which led to the killing of two innocent Ghanaians,” he told the press, yesterday.