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18.12.2012 NPP

NPP Raided Again!

By Daily Guide
Gloria AkuffoGloria Akuffo
18.12.2012 LISTEN

It appears that the hunt for the opposition New Patriotic Party's (NPP) evidence of election rigging by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is intensifying, as the latest in the series of clandestine raids hit offices of Blay and Associates, a renowned law firm headquartered in Accra, where one of the lead lawyers for the opposition party operates.

Over the weekend, unknown assailants stormed the office of the law firm on the Ring Road and rummaged through documents and made away with one laptop computer, while attempting to wrench the company's internet server off the wall.

Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the target of the raid masked as a burglary was Ms Gloria Akuffo, a partner at Blay and Associates and incidentally, the chairperson of the committee of lawyers putting a case together for the NPP to challenge the outcome of the December 7 general elections at the Supreme Court.

Ms Akuffo, a former Minister for Aviation in the erstwhile NPP government, had her office turned upside down as the assailants ransacked it for an unknown motive.

Narrating the weekend ordeal to DAILY GUIDE, Ms Akuffo said luckily for her, she did not have any sensitive document in her office. “I have not lost any document…I don't keep documents in the office. “They went through my drawer and took a bracelet. As to whether they took any other document; it is not obvious to me now,” she said.

According to the legal practitioner, the assailants stormed almost everywhere in the office that stored documents, including the server room and library. “The server was tampered with, they also went to the conference room, pulled drawers and pulled out papers,” Madam Akuffo narrated.

The incident has since been reported at the Nima Police Station for investigation.

The break-in was discovered by the janitor of the law firm.

He reportedly came for his routine cleaning duty on Sunday morning when he discovered the whole second floor office ransacked, with papers flying all over the offices.

The invaders apparently evaded the security officers downstairs and accessed the law firm through the windows.

There are suspicions that there might have been more than one burglar during the nocturnal operation.

According to administrative officers of Blay and Associates, the assailants appeared to have been professionals because they knew exactly how to evade the CCTV cameras and it appeared they wore gloves to avoid leaving tell-tale fingerprints.

The police are said to have had a tough time gathering fingerprints at the crime scene.

According to Nana Yaa Owusu-Aduome, a lawyer at the firm whose laptop was taken away, it beat her imagination why anybody would want to burgle a law firm.

“They didn't come to steal, they came for documents,” one of the company's secretaries told DAILY GUIDE.

Curious Connection
It is rather curious for burglars to break into a law firm that normally does not house anything valuable other than documents and case files. The lawyers at Blay and Associates would not hazard any specific motive for the break-in. “I am not able to see why they came, and I cannot ascribe a motive because I don't know what they were looking for,” said the former deputy Attorney General, Ms Akuffo.

But critics said the coincidence was too striking. Just last week, a group of fully armed policemen and soldiers stormed the offices of the NPP where computer geeks were busy compiling evidence of election rigging in the 26,000 polling stations across the country.

It is alleged that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Electoral Commission officials colluded to cook fictitious figures for incumbent John Dramani Mahama who won the elections by a 50.7 percent margin.

His close competitor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the NPP, who trailed with a 47.74 percent of overall votes, is convinced that the outcome of the election was “fraudulently cooked” for the NDC.

Officials of the NPP claimed they had hard evidence to show that the total votes declared by the Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, were massively bloated.

They estimated that additional figures ran into over 200,000 votes.

There is scanty information about the motive of these snap raids, but NPP officials are convinced that operatives of the ruling party are trying to snatch the evidence in their possession.

“It is natural for people to link the two, and my position is that I am not ruling out anything although I cannot be categorical that they came there because they are looking for documents connected to the case,” noted Madam Akuffo.

“For purposes of circulation, if that is what they were looking for they couldn't find anything because I didn't have anything in my office; I don't still have anything in my office, neither do I have anything in my house and I don't have anything in my car.

“I am the wrong person if that is the intention. There is nothing that I have that anybody should be interested in,” she warned.

Police State
In view of the incessant raid, NPP General Secretary Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, yesterday, warned the government and the NDC to immediately cease using police state tactics to interfere with the preparation of evidence for the party's court case to challenge the EC's faulty declaration of John Mahama as president-elect.

“First, the NDC steals the voice of the people by manipulating the vote count in a fraudulent way. Then they send dozens of fully armed police and military personnel on a raid of a private office full of male and female students merely counting blue sheets. Then at the weekend, we had the break-in and ransacking of the law office of Gloria Akuffo, the lead member of the NPP legal team,” the statement said.

“These tactics can only be described in one way: a police state, and they are virtually an admission of NDC guilt over their crude election theft,” the NPP scribe added.

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