Politics of Wednesday, 11 May 2016

Source: Daily Guide

Deputy Minister chased out

Murtala Mohammed Murtala Mohammed

The Deputy Trade and Industry Minister and Member of Parliament for Nantong, Murtala Mohammed, was on Saturday chased away from the Zing registration centre for insulting some community members in the area.

Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicated that the MP for the area bussed in some students from a different community to the registration centre to register.

A former assemblyman of the community, who is an uncle to Murtala Mohammed, reportedly went to the registration centre with the MP and said whoever tried to prevent those people from registering would have him (ex-assemblyman) to contend with, threatening that he would turn Zing upside down.

The former assemblyman warned the people at the registration centre that whoever tried to touch the MP would face his wrath.

Some community members who were at the centre were angered by these comments and told him that he could never do that because that wasn’t his town and that he could only do that in his hometown and not Zing.

A verbal exchange ensued and the MP and his uncle were told to leave the centre. The two eventually sped off in their vehicle when police personnel intervened.

The Nantong constituency secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Mohammed Abdul Latif, told DAILY GUIDE that the MP came to the registration centre with some three well-built men who were in the vehicle with guns.

According to him, the situation disrupted the registration process for some time till the police brought order back to the place.

He accused Murtala Mohammed of bussing people, most especially students, who were not residents of the area to register at various centres.

An agent of the NDC forcibly took a complainant form from an NPP agent and destroyed it simply because he made a complaint about the manner in which the NDC kept bussing students to the registration centre, even after the Electoral Commission had warned them about it.

The NPP agents at the registration centre made sure the people who were bussed to the place to register were not allowed to register since they were not natives of the area.