The Eastern regional executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) yesterday addressed a press conference at Akyem Oda in a reaction to what they described as an ‘unlawful’ arrest of the party’s polling station organizer at Akwatia last Sunday, which was allegedly engineered by deputy Eastern regional minister Mohammed Baba Jamal.
Baba Jamal, who once declared Jihad in Akwatia, was said to have caused the arrest of Kwame Boaning, who was sent to the Oda Police with no charge preferred against him.
The party alleged Kwame Boaning was arrested around 4am on the instructions of Baba Jamal and transferred to Oda to prevent a possible attack of the Akwatia Police Station by the youth.
According to the NPP first regional vice chairman, Alhaji Umar Bodinga, the arrest of Boaning by the Akwatia police was nothing but a grand scheme by the hierarchy of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region to intimidate supporters and followers of the NPP to pave way for rigging next year’s general elections.
“This is part of a plan hatched to intimidate NPP supporters from now till election time next year,” he said.
Alhaji Bodinga alleged that the Eastern regional organizer of the NDC, Tawiah Boateng, had publicly stated at a workshop organized for constituency organizers of the party that the NDC would do everything in its power to win 54% of votes in the region in next year’s general elections.
“We find it difficult to understand the crime in refusing to shake hands with somebody,” he said.
Baba Jamal was alleged to have caused the arrest of Kwame Boaning at Akwatia after he refused to shake hands with him, resulting in confrontations between followers of Baba and Boaning last Sunday.
According to sources, Jamal was attracted to a group of NPP youth chatting at a place called ‘Cold Store’ at Akwatia and went there to shake hands with them.
But when it got to the turn of Boaning, he refused Baba Jamal’s gesture because he said Baba instructed his agents to visit mayhem on them during the last general elections.
This, according to sources, did not go down well with the deputy minister who allegedly referred to Boaning as a “villager” for not shaking hands with him.
The followers of Baba Jamal including his brother, Musah, also did not take kindly to the former’s humiliation and started a heated argument with him which nearly resulted in a fight.
The following day, police went to Boaning’s house to arrest him for insulting the deputy regional minister.
Baba Jamal confirmed on Peace FM on Monday that he personally reported Boaning to the police for him to be arrested because he showed disrespect to him and insulted him as well as his parents and the president.
Alhaji Bodinga claimed that Baba Jamal had gained notoriety for unnecessarily causing the arrest of his political opponents and also inciting NDC youth to attack their political opponents and causing mayhem in the Akwatia constituency, where he has been the NDC parliamentary candidate on three consecutive occasions.
Alhaji Bodinga stressed that the NPP was ready for the NDC in the region, particularly Akwatia where Mr. Jamal was scheming to wrest the seat from the NPP.
Alhaji Bodinga appealed to Baba Jamal to take a cue from his predecessor, Ofosu Asamoah, who served during the NPP regime with humility and level-headedness, and be humble and respectful and stop creating conflicts in the Eastern region.