General News of Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Source: Daily Guide

Odododiodoo: NDC Thugs Exposed

DAILY GUIDE has stumbled upon the names and identities of some of the suspected National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists who wielded cutlasses, hoes, guns and cudgels menacingly in broad daylight at Accra Central a couple of weeks ago.

A certain Nunoo, who works with the National Security Council, partook in the lawless conduct with one Adjetey, popularly known as Alhaji Brother, a man said to live in the Cow Lane part of Ododiodoo.

Alhaji Brother is the son of a man simply called Brother Mai Lotto, a name derived from his previous occupation of lotto business and a known personality in that part of Accra Central.

Nunoo, Alhaji Brother and Adjetey were those wearing the arm bands around their wrists.

They are all known NDC activists in the Odododiodoo constituency in Accra.

The police say they needed a clue before they could move on the hoodlums.

A couple of weeks ago, hundreds of rampaging NDC hoodlums went to the Kantamanto Market where they looted cutlasses and other implements and took to the streets in Accra Central in a show of force on the suspected directive of a presidential aide, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, who is the NDC parliamentary candidate, for the constituency.

According to a report filed by DAILY GUIDE reporters who went to the scene, two of them had firearms which they brazenly fired intermittently.

Although there was no incident, the fact that they took to the streets wielding the dangerous implements alongside their ready-to-fight posture, with policemen allegedly shepherding them and making no arrests, prompted many questions.

The picture of the rampaging activists was expectedly rubbished by some top NDC personalities, including James Agyenim-Boateng, a deputy Minister of Information, as being a scene from another country even as it provoked a national conversation about the level of lawlessness on the political course in the country.

Mr Agyenim-Boateng took issues with the authenticity of the pictures until DAILY GUIDE debunked his arguments and reproduced more pictures depicting the skyline of Swalaba where the pictures were taken.

The additional pictures depicting important landmarks including mobile phone numbers on shops lining up places where the hoodlums passed were published.

The action of the party activists came on the heels of an earlier attack on Ursula Owusu, Ablekuma South parliamentary candidate for the NPP when she visited the Odododiodoo constituency to encourage women to go and register in the biometric registration exercise.

In a daring repeat performance, she returned to the constituency the following day without an incident. It was after she had left the place that the so-called Nii Lante Vanderpuye boys descended upon the street after looting the implements from the Kantamanto Market.

One of the traders in the Kantamanto Market who spoke to a radio station after the looting spree recalled his ordeal at the hands of the thugs who did not return the items they looted.

Ms Owusu also identified a certain Bruno as one of the persons who assaulted her.