Aflao, March 3, GNA - Business activities at the Ghana Togo border at Aflao seemed to have slackened as Togolese gear up for presidential elections on Thursday.

Sources close to Ghanaian security agencies at Aflao said many foreigners resident in Togo and some Togolese were also leaving that country for Ghana.

But uncharacteristically, security at the Togo side of the border, with a few days to the elections appeared relaxed as travelers hardly faced any difficulties going to or coming from Lome.

Weapon wielding Togolese security personnel were conspicuously absent. Departure formalities on the Lome side of the frontier involving mainly Europeans, Chinese and Koreans were not different from what it was on the Ghana side at Aflao when the GNA visited the border on Tuesday. Mr Mathias Hommey, Assistant Director of Immigration in charge of Aflao, confirmed the slowdown in traffic across the border, but said this might not be due to the impending elections, because such fluctuations in the traffic across the border were regular patterns. On the movement of people out of Lome, he said, his outfit had not gathered any information to suggest that such movements were prompted by the up coming elections in that country.

Seven candidates are contesting the Presidential elections. These are incumbent Fuare Gnassingbe for the RPT, Yaovi Agboyibo, CAR and Jean-Pierre Fabre, of UFC who replaced ailing Gilchrist Olympio, Madam Bridjette Adjamagbo-Johnson, CDPA, Agbeyome Kodzo, OBUT, Nicholas Lawson, PRR, and Basabi Kagbara for PDP.