Crime & Punishment of Saturday, 21 April 2012

Source: GNA

Nana Akufo-Addo asked to condemn Agyapong's statement

The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has been asked to condemn the statement of Mr Kennedy Agyapong, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North, which resulted in the arrest of the MP recently.

Mr Bright Akwetey, a presidential aspirant of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), who made the call, said the condemnation would prove Nana Akufo-Addo’s commitment to peace and stability before, during and after the December elections.

Mr Akwetey said, as a legal practitioner and a former Attorney General, Nana Akufo- Addo knew that such inflammatory statement could plunge the nation into chaos.

He was speaking to journalists after meeting CPP delegates from the Eastern Region, in Koforidua.

Mr Akwetey called on all well-meaning and peace loving Ghanaians to condemn the statement in no uncertain terms, because its effects could be dangerous, especially in an election year.

According to him, although the NPP had rendered an apology, it was half-hearted since the party continued to create the impression that the statement was nothing and the police and the law was only acting in the interest of another political party.

He said the stability of Ghana had been threatened in the last few days following the inflammatory statement, and asked the leadership of the NPP to call their supporters to order whiles the law took its course.

Mr Akwetey said “besieging of the police headquarters and the courts, destruction of state and private properties were all excessive reactions that must not be condoned by the leadership of the NPP and any discerning Ghanaian”.

He said from every legal point of view, the statement was offensive and the justice system must be allowed to take its course.

Mr Akwetey asked the Attorney General’s Department to be up to the task, and not make any lapse in prosecuting such a sensitive matter.**