Ex-Minister Seeks Awuni's Head
Former Greater Accra Regional Minister Nii Armah Ashietey has made good his threat of dragging ACP Awuni Angwubutoge to the Minister of Interior, following a fracas between him and the superior officer recently.
An Interior Ministry source told DAILY GUIDE that the former minister, who is also the MP for the Korley Klottey Constituency, had finally lodged a formal petition with the Minister of Interior, seeking redress for what according to him was an unprovoked assault on him by policemen on the orders of ACP Awuni Angwubutoge, during the second phase of the ongoing biometric registration exercise within the MTTU yard.
The MP told the minister that he was held for some 90 minutes before finally being released by ACP Awuni who he said conducted himself 'like a wounded lion and full of himself'.
He claimed that his action at the MTTU polling centre was to abort the registration of migrant traders who were crossing over from the Odododiodoo Constituency across the adjoining road to Klottey Korley.
The MP's petition, which was copied to the National Security Coordinator, Inspector General of Police, Regional Director, Electoral Commission, National Chairman of the NDC and the regional chairman of the party, appears to be seeking to have the MTTU chief dealt with.
It would be recalled that when a team of NDC Greater Accra Regional executives of the party stormed the MTTU whilst the former minister was being held there, some of them threatened him with dismissal from the Ghana Police Service.
He was said to have been so enraged by the threat that he presented his cap to them, asking that they sack him forthwith if they were his employers.
The recourse to the Interior Minister, the supervising ministry of the Police Service, is without doubt the beginning of a process by the aggrieved Nii Armah Ashietey to have his pound of flesh.
Before the party executives left the MTTU office, they promised to deal with him and even went ahead to hold a press conference demanding the removal of ACP Awuni Angwubutoge from his present duty post because, according to them, 'they could no longer work with him'.
They also threatened to picket in front of the MTTU to press home their demand for his removal, although they failed to carry through the threat.
Nii Armah Ashietey, according to the Interior Ministry source, claimed in his petition that the maltreatment he was subjected to by the policemen could have adverse effects on his health, adding that the action was tendentious, intended to put fear and panic in his agents.
Nii Ashietey told the Interior Minister that Ursula Owusu, the NPP Parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma South, turned up to congratulate the police for a job well done in reference to his ordeal at the hands of the security agents. The lady, according to him, had earlier asked street hawkers and traders at Okaishie to go and register.
The Nii Armah Ashietey vs Awuni Angwubutoge issue was in the public spotlight when the matter made the headlines across the country because of the public outcry over an alleged political interference in policing.
ACP Awuni Angwubutoge, who refused to speak to the media soon after the incident within the premises of his office, was compelled to, as he put it, respond to the untruths being spewed out by the former minister.
Another source at the Police Headquarters told DAILY GUIDE that ACP Awuni Angwubutoge said in his statement regarding the fracas that the former minister claimed that those who were registering were Kwahus and would definitely vote against him; hence his action to stop them from registering at the location.
As a police officer charged with maintaining law and order, he said in a statement which DAILY GUIDE chanced upon at the Police Headquarters, he asked the former minister to leave but the man refused to oblige, a refusal which, he added, compelled him to ask his men to arrest him.