NDC Boys Chase Minister…Soldiers, Police Rescue

Angry National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists in Tamale over the weekend demanded the dismissal of Northern Regional Minister Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, accusing him of meddling in the election of regional executives of the party.

According to them, the minister did not deserve to shepherd the region in view of his conduct in recent times, which had put the party in a bad light.

The minister was alleged to have ordered for the arrest and detention of the Regional Organiser of the party Godfred Wumbei, alias Yellow Man, after a heated confrontation at the minister's residence.

NDC youth in the area went on rampage following the arrest; and it took the intervention of a combined team of soldiers and police personnel to curtail the activities of the marauding youth.

Mr Wumbei was only released on Saturday afternoon, together with his driver, without a charge after their arrest on Friday evening, upon the instructions of the minister, who insisted that the two gentlemen had attacked him.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that the two stormed the residence of the minister when they got information that he was influencing some delegates to vote against him on Sunday after the results of an earlier election that saw him emerge winner were being contested.

They were said to have engaged in heated arguments with the minister after tempers flared resulting in nasty scenes, following which they were apprehended and locked up in different cells within the metropolis.

Some aggrieved supporters of the NDC, on hearing the news of the detention of Mr Wumbei, descended on the minister, calling for his removal and describing him as a New Patriotic Party (NPP) mole.

According to a number of them who besieged the police station, the minister had no right to order for their arrest and detention.

The NDC activists said the minister got his position because of his friendship with President John Mahama, as they are both Gonjas from the region.

Alhaji Limuna, a former director at the Ministry of Health, was in charge of Hajj operations during the NPP administration and was made Minister in charge of Scholarship before being sent to the Upper East as acting Regional Minister. He later landed in the Northern Region as minister after a reshuffle.

Attack
But the minister indicated that the NDC executive member and his supporter attacked him and his bodyguard while they were in a meeting with some party members at the residency, and the best way to restore calm was to order for his arrest.

“Around 6:00pm while in a meeting, I saw that there were people struggling with my bodyguard and all of a sudden I saw one of them push to open the door and he started banging the table in front of me and stretching his hands to slap me.

'…So quickly I called the police to come in and pick them to go and detain them. I am in government residency having a meeting and someone comes in from nowhere to attack me. This is an assault. Even if I was not a Regional Minister and I was attacked in my own house I will still have taken this issue up,' the Northern Regional Minister said.

The matter had since been resolved by the NDC leadership who met both parties separately and urged them to allow peace to prevail in the interest of party unity and cohesion.

Meanwhile, Godfred Wumbei has since been sworn into office as the Regional Organiser after the other two discontinued plans to contest the outcome of the results.

One of the candidates, after the regional elections last weekend, filed a protest for a re-run, claiming there were some omissions in the spelling of his name.

As a result, the Election Committee of the party put the swearing in of the declared winner on hold and promised to investigate the matter or conduct fresh elections in the spirit of fairness.

In a related development, Lawyer Halid Rauf, a private legal practitioner, has unseated the current regional secretary Alhaji Imoro Issifu Alhassan at the deferred voting for regional positions which was held yesterday at the Tamale Sports Stadium.

He polled 239 as against the incumbent who polled 32, while a former Member of Parliament for Chereponi, Samuel Abdulai Jabayintey, polled 47 votes.

The position of regional treasurer was unopposed, implying that Tanko Rashid-Computer retained his position in the party.

Election for the two positions was deferred after an interlocutory injunction was sought by one of the contestants, Aliu Mohammed, following his disqualification during the vetting chaired by the party's General Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketia.

The injunction, according to legal brains of the party, elapsed on Saturday night and since they were not served new court orders, they could be allowed to proceed to elect the rest of their officers.

From Stephen Zoure, Tamale