PRESS CONFERENCE ORGANIZED BY THE CENTRAL REGIONAL BRANCH OF THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY AT AJUMAKO BESEASE ON 7TH AUGUST, 2020 TO ERASE THE CHARACTERISTIC NDC LIES AND TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON THE REPORTED BESEASE REGISTRATION VIOLENCE
We warmly welcome all media personnel and thank you for your presence and even more so for the short notice. The Central Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party has called this Press Conference to react to the blatant lies that were spewed by the Central Regional branch of the NDC in Ajumako Besease here yesterday.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the New Patriotic Party is a very law abiding and under no circumstance are we going to take the law into our hands and endanger the peace and tranquility that the good people of Besease in particular and for that matter Ajumako Enyan Essiam are enjoying.
If we will remember, there is a video which went viral recently on social media and in that video, the Member of Parliament for Ajumko Enyan Essiam, Ato Forson, is heard loudly telling a group of young men and women he had met and was arranging to bus them to the constituency for them to be registered and also requesting them to support him to retain the Ajumako Enyan Essiam seat and that in the unlikely situation that former President Mahama becomes the next President, he(Ato Forson) will be the Finance Minister. This tells you that even before we go to the polls to cast our ballots on 7th December, 2020, Ato Forson’s phantom ambition is to become the Minister of Finance in the unlikely situation that Mahama wins the 2020 Presidential Elections. This has been the propeller and motivation of Ato Forson to the extent that even if it takes non-indigenes of Ajumako Enyan Essiam to vote for him or killing, beating and maiming people for him to achieve his selfish ambition, Ato Forson cares less. Again, there is another video in which Ato Forson is heard shouting on top of his voice that he did not fear anybody. This a three-term Member of Parliament and also a former Deputy Finance Minister and therefore one would have thought that these positions and training would have gone through him but here is Ato Forson standing in the midst of his marauding NDC supporters and hoodlums speaking in such a manner to urge them on to resort to lawlessness and violence.
Ajumako Enyan Essiam Constituency had been peaceful all this while until Ato Forson appeared on the political scene in 2008 as the NDC Parliamentary Candidate. Since then Ajumako Enyan Essiam has been the breeding grounds for political violence. To take you down memory lane, Ato Forson with his NDC hoodlums attacked NPP supporters who had embarked on a peaceful keep-fit exercise on the Ajumako-Techiman road in 2008 which saw some NPP supporters sustaining various degrees of injury. Also, Ato Forson’s aide, by name frank Arnold Otchere attacked innocent people who were in a queue to take part in the 2012 Voters’ Registration Exercise. In the same 2012, Ato Forson’s marauding supporters attacked NPP supporters at a mini rally at Ajumako Assasan where an NPP supporter, by name Kwesi Bon, was stabbed on the nose. Furthermore, in October,2016, Ato Forson and his landguards attacked NPP Constituency Officers at Mr Okyere’s (an NPP elder) house in Besease in which attack Kojo Abaasa( a.k.a Rasta), Tuafic Alhasssan, Osei Brobbey and one Alex( Mr Okyere’s driver) were stabbed which resulted in life threatening injuries . It the course of this attack, they vandalized the NPP Parliamentary Candidate’s Nissan Patrol vehicle and the NPP Constituency Secretary’s Taxi cab. Not only did they injure people and vandalize properties, they also stole phones and ipads from the cars that they vandalized. On the 7th of December, 2016, Ato Forson’s supporters attacked NPP supporters at Ajumako Assasan and Enyan Maim polling stations, injuring them and vandalizing vehicles belonging to the NPP supporters.
For the 2020 Voters’ Registration Exercise, all that Ato Forson and the NDC saw as the sine qua non for achieving his selfish phantom ambition of retaining the Ajumako Enyan Essiam seat and becoming the Finance Minister in the unlikely situation that John Mahama wins the 2020 Presidential elections were to buy non- indigenes and bus them to the Ajumako Enyan Essiam to register them and perpetrate and visit violence on the innocent people of Ajumako Enyan Essiam. A case in point was where a bus-load of Ato Forson’s non-indigenes who had been contracted from the Gomoa area to come and register in the Ajumako Enyan Essiam Constituency so that they could vote for Ato Forson and the NDC was arrested by the police at Gomoa Dominase. As it was aired by Adom TV, the ring leader confessed that indeed he was contracted by Ato Forson for that job and he was bribing each of the non-indigenes who were on the bus GHC 30 for accepting to go and illegally register in Ajumako Enyan Essiam. Till date, Ato Forson and the NDC have not denied that story which was aired on Adom TV.
Also, for Ato Forson and the NDC to create tension, chaos and visit violence on the good people of Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Ato Forson contracted Landguards and Machomen from Kasoa and Accra and housed them in different hotels within the constituency and Mankessim in the Mfantseman Municipality. Some of these Ato Forson Landguards were those who were arrested by the police at YAN Guest House in Mankessim during the Voters Registration Exercise. These Ato Forson Landguards/Machomen were numbering about two hundred and were always seen in Urvan/Coastal buses and pick-up vehicles moving from registration centre to another creating scenes, beating people and causing all forms of violence within the constituency. On the 1st of July, 2020, some of these Ato Forson Landguards surrounded the Ajumako Enyan Essiam NPP Parliamentary Candidate’s auntie’s house at Enyan Denkyira at a time that there was no voter registration exercise taking place within the Enyan Denkyira area. The NDC Constituency Youth Organizer, Amos Mensah, led the NDC thugs to surround that house on the false allegation that the NPP Parliamentary Candidate, Dr Rashid Kwesi Etauful, had camped non-indigenes in that house to register them as voters within the constituency. Meanwhile all that was happening in that house was that food for the NPP registration agents was being cooked and three NPP activists, namely Otoo Baah, Henry Okyere and Lovelance Agyemang had gone to the house to covey the food to our registration agents were attacked and assaulted by these Ato Forson thugs who had surrounded the house.
At Nyame Bekyere, one of Ato Forson’s marauding boys who goes by the name Young Money attacked NPP supporters at the registration centre. At Ekwamase, the NPP registration agent, Jonathan Aidoo, who was challenging a non-indigene who had come to register, was attacked and slapped by the NDC hoodlums and in the course of the attack, the notorious NDC Constituency Youth Organizer, Amos Mensah, pulled a gun. On the 3rd of August, 2020, Ato Forson in the company of some of his landguards, stormed the house of one NPP activist, Miss Ernestina Baiden, in Ajumako Besease where Ato Forson went to threaten Miss Baiden and her family members just for the mere reason that Miss Baiden was raising a challenge against non-indigenes who had been bused in by Ato Forson and the NDC to register.
We place it on record that Mr Lord Commey, Director of Operations at the Presidency, has never been in the Central Region since the 2020 voters Registration exercise started let alone to be in Ajumako on the 5th of August, 2020 to be part of any meeting to cause violence in Besease. Also, the Central Regional Chairman of the NPP, Mr Robert Kutin Jnr, was not in Ajumko Enyan Essiam constituency on Wednesday, 5th August, 2020 and therefore cannot be part of any alleged meeting in Ajumako on that day. Also, there was no meeting between the Transport Minister, Hon Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, the NPP Central Regional Secretary, Mr Richard Takyi-Mensah, the NPP Central Regional Research/Elections Officer, Mr John Mbroh, the NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Ajumako Enyan Essiam, Dr Rashid Kwesi Etuaful, and the DCE for Ajumako Enyan Essiam ,Hon Ransford Kwesi Nyarko on one side and the Mankessim Divisonal Police Commander, ACP Owoahene, on the other.
For emphasis, the New Patriotic Party is a very law abiding party and under no circumstance will the party and its functionaries engage in any activity to endanger the peace in Ajumako Enyan Essiam. We have always been in touch and reporting to the police anytime there was an attack on any of our supporters or had issue with the security situation in the constituency throughout this voters registration exercise. We even went to the extent of reporting attacks on party people to the Regional Police Command. Some of Ato Forson’s hoodlums who have perpetrated violence against our party people in the course of the voters registration exercise and are on the police’s wanted list are Amos Mensah, Frank Okyere a.k.a Yellow Corn, Thomas Woode, Isaac Andoh, a.k.a Young Money, Godwin Doughan and Anabi Musah. The police have dockets on all these people but they have gone into hiding on the orchestration of At Forson
Ato Forson and the NDC see defeat staring them in the face come 7th December, 2020, hence their resort to violence and busing non-indigenes to register in Ajumako Enyan Essiam but we assure them that the Central Regional branch of the NPP,led by Chairman Robert Kutin Jnr, is going to work harder to annex the Ajumako Enyan Essiam seat come 7th December, 2020. The people of Ajumako Enyan Essiam Constituency have been proud beneficiaries of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s numerous social intervention programmes such as Free SHS, Planting for Food and Jobs, Restoration of Nursing and Teacher Trainee allowances, astronomical increases in the number of basic schools enjoying school feeding programme ,free water for six months, heavily subsidized electricity bill for all consumers for six months amongst others. It is on this basis and amongst others that the good people of Ajumako Enyan Essiam are going to vote massively for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr Rashid Kwesi Etuaful come 7th December, 2020. We call on the police to do their investigations to fish out the perpetrators of that dastardly acts that took place in Ajumako Besease on Wednesday, 5th August, 2020 and let them face the full rigors of the law. Thank you for your attention.
