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29.09.2008 NPP

Adenta NPP, NDC claash

29.09.2008 LISTEN
By The Statesman

Members of the Adenta constituency of the New Patriotic Party and their counterparts from the opposition National Democratic Congress last week clashed over alleged irregularities in the just ended picture taking exercise conducted by the Electoral Commission.

The NPP members have accused the EC representative in the area, Nana Rockson, of conniving with the NDC, led by their parliamentary candidate, Kwadwo Adu Asare, to issue children under 18 years and other people with multiple voter Identity Cards.

An NPP activist, Daniel Obeng Asihene, told The Statesman during an investigation that they suspected the EC official and other NDC members of fishy deals when they refused to report at the Adenta police station where both parties had agreed to keep the registration materials in the course of the picture taking exercise.

"We therefore sent one of our members to the Adenta Community School where the materials were initially kept on Wednesday 17th September to find out what was happening'. 

Narrating the incident further, Mr. Asihene said during the last registration exercise both parties had problems about where the materials were kept. They subsequently agreed that the materials be transferred from the Adenta Community School to the newly built Police Station as a way of ensuring their safety.

According to Mr. Asihene, they had information from reliable sources on the 17th of September that the EC representative, Nana Rockson had 'camped' over 20 people at the premises of the Adenta Community School and was illegally taking their pictures.

He said they heard that Nana Rockson was putting the pictures of such people on forms of people who had earlier registered for ID cards but couldn't take their pictures for several reasons. This, he said was to enable such people impersonate them in the upcoming general elections, a move that was likely to favour the opposition NDC. 'We therefore sent Allan Bruce, one of our members to the place to verify the situation and it proved to be true' he stated.

Allan Bruce, the NPP activist told The Statesman in an interview that when he got to the school, he saw the EC representative around 9pm that day taking photographs of suspected NDC supporters and questioned them. 'They held me and gave me some straight beatings but I managed to escape and raised alarm'.

He said based on the information, the Adenta Police was informed and they stormed the school together with some members of the NPP but were only able to arrest the watchman. Nana Rockson, the EC representative for the area was later invited to the Police station to write his statement the next day together with the District Electoral Officer, Mike Boadu.

When confronted at the Police station last week, Nana Rockson, a teacher of Adenta Holy Rosary Catholic School denied any wrong doing, and said he acted based on instructions and in accordance with the regulations of the EC.

'I have the right to select people outside the EC to assist me do my work and the regulation allows it.  So I don't see anything wrong with it', he told The Statesman .

The Adenta District Police Commander, DSP Tettegah, in a telephone interview with the Statesman after the paper had tried and failed on several occasions to interview him personally, confirmed the story.

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