A former Minister for the Interior, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, has condemned the deployment of masked, gun-wielding men during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election held on Thursday, 31 January 2019.

The Minister of State in charge of National Security, Mr Bryan Acheampong said the gunmen were National Security operatives sent to the location upon a security tip-off.

They fired into some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the private residence of the party’s parliamentary candidate at La-Bawaleshie, injuring 16 people.

Speaking about the incident, the former Minister of Defence, who was a guest on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Monday, 11 January 2019, told Benjamin Akakpo that it was “shocking” that a Minister at the Office of the Presidency will be involved in that operation.

“It is not just loading people in a vehicle, driving them in a very intimidating manner, in a civil activity to go to the place. What madness comes into people? Even the posture, alone, of those people, is quite disturbing. You don’t need it in a by-election,” Dr Kunbuor stated.

He added: “There is a minister for national security. [So] what is a minister at the Office of the President doing with national security? Because the one who has the responsibility to go to parliament is the one who is in charge of the ministry”.

Dr Kunbuor explained that what the security agencies should have done was to conduct a threat analysis of the by-election and subsequently prepare a response.



According to him, if the security agencies pick intelligence regarding threats, “it does not take even a day to pick up all those people you think you have questions to ask and interrogate them”.

The former lawmaker suggested that the people involved could be have been bonded “till the by-election was over” and not to send combat teams to the polls.