NPP Chairman to be buried today

Bolgatanga, May 22, GNA - The Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Adams Mahama, who died on Thursday would be buried today before or after the Friday noon prayers, family source has confirmed.

Even though a Muslim, the deceased, could not be buried on Thursday as Islamic laws direct, because some pathologists and experts from the homicide unit of the Ghana Police Service were flown in from Accra to examine the body to assist in investigations before family members could take possession of the remains.

On Wednesday night at about 2300 hours, some persons poured a substance believed to be raw acid on Mr Mahama on his way home when these persons stopped him and he obliged. He was immediately rushed to the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital and admitted at the intensive care unit where he was pronounced dead by 0900 hours on Thursday.

Two persons whose names the deceased was alleged to have mentioned as responsible for the heinous crime before his death, were one Gregory Afoko, a brother to the National Chairman of the NPP. He was arrested by the Bolgatanga Police and airlifted to Accra on Thursday. The other suspect was one Asabiga, a sympathizer of the NPP in Bolgatanga whom the Police in Bolgatanga have mounted a search for.

Mr Mahama's death is strongly connected to a misunderstanding that ensued between him and some members of the party in the region on one side, and two national executives, Messrs Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong, National Chairman and General Secretary of the NPP respectively, and some other members of the party on the other side in Bolgatanga which led to a tussle that cancelled a planned meeting conveyed by these two national executives.

Just some few days after the disruption of that party meeting, some members of the party keeping faith with Mr Afoko, sent a strong statement to protect and defend the National Chairman at all times in the region.

On Thursday, the Police in Bolgatanga re-enforced security in the township, and assigned officers to key fragile areas, including the NPP regional office, family houses of the two parties in contention, while patrols were beefed up.

Mr Adams was very instrumental in the development of the party both at the regional and national levels. He funded most of the pavilions popularly known as party base, and mostly used by party sympathizers, especially the youth for party meetings and leisure times.

The deceased has been described by some members of the party as a true financier of the party, a generous man who was always willing and ready to give to the needy, as well as defend the party.

These disturbances come in the wake of residents' contemplating on the outcome of a chieftaincy dispute over a successor to the Bolgatanga Paramount skin. The broiling anxiety and tension on this matter is still lingering, as the appropriate institutions expected to pronounce the true successor to the Bolga Naba have not yet come out.

Bolgatanga, which was described by the late Bolga Naba, Martin Abilba III as 'the Geneva of the North' is now becoming a den of preventable and indeed resolvable disturbances.

GNA