NPP Explains Headquarters Ransacking Saga

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen,
This meeting is to brief you on the events that have happened over the last 24 hours.

In the early hours around this morning, a group of about 15 armed men in military uniform in military vehicles and police escort vehicles, invaded the party office, supervised the vandalisation of the office and claim to have found guns and other weapons at the office.

Around 1:00 am this morning, two party security officers and two live-in cleaners heard banging on the gates. Upon enquiry, a voice told them it was the police. One security man peeped through the gate and indeed saw a police vehicle parked in front of the gate.

The security man opened the partially, only to be pushed inside and about 15 armed men in military uniform entered the compound.

Upon entry, one of the four party officials identified one of the 15 uniformed men and called him by name. Apparently they were neighbors. That familiarity gave the party security man some lee way and he managed to sneak outside the compound.

There were two or three vehicles parked on the street outside. As he crossed the street a voice from one of the parked vehicles, somebody whom he claims he recognized shouted he should be arrested. He however managed to escape.

Back inside the compound, the three remaining party officials were made to surrender their phones and herded into the security post and locked up. Couple of minutes later, the military uniform men ordered them out. They produced a sack and proceeded to pour the contents out on the floor.

The contents included 4 AK47 and 4 machetes which the military uniformed men claimed to have found on the compound. The 3 party officials were then asked to pick the 8 weapons and put them back into the sack. Shortly after the gate was opened and another group which was waiting outside was allowed into the compound. This group numbering over 50 was wearing red t-shirts with the inscriptions “Peace and Unity”. They told the three security men that they have taken over the head office security and the party belonged to those who voted in Tamale and nobody else.

The two groups- the men in military uniform and the red t shirted men proceeded to break into various offices and vandalized / ransacked them. At the various offices, particularly at the office of the Director for elections, computer hard drives were taken together with several files and other documentation. Shortly after, a detachment from the Nima police station arrived on the compound. They managed to arrest 9 of the red t-shirted boys whiles the others fled.

Whiles these events were happening at the head office a similar operation of siege and vandalisation was going on at the Greater Accra regional office at the party at Kokomlemle.

At the moment the head office is calm, the police are helping to maintain security and the party is actively cooperating with the police to investigate and get to the bottom of these bizarre events.

The questions that come to mind are:
1. Who authorized this operation by military uniformed men?

2. How did they get access to police and military vehicles?

3. How did they proceed to search the party office without a search warrant?

4. How did they proceed to conduct searches without notice to any official of the party or involving the party security men who were ransacked.

5. Why have the police detained a bonafied party security man?

6. Is this an attack on Ghana’s democracy?