"Commission Of Inquiry To Probe Ayawaso West Incident A Whitewash"

The Commission of Inquiry put in place by the ruling NPP government under President Nana Akufo-Addo, to investigate the Ayawaso West Wuogon By-elections shooting and violent attacks is a grand scheme to cover up government.

This, according to the Deputy General Secretary of the opposition NDC, Peter Boamah Otokunor, is meant to push the government away from being held responsible for the mayhem that was caused.

"The opposition party is not going to take any verdict from the Commission of Inquiry set up by the government to investigate the disturbances that marred the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election last week," Otokunor made it clear.

“We have also taken notice of the wishy-washy cover-up commission that was set up by the vice president yesterday [Wednesday], if you look at the members of the commission nobody would tell you this group of people are just going to sit there and do cover up for the president,” he said in an interview on Eyewitness News on Thursday.

Stalwarts of the NDC joined hundreds of Ghanaian on Thursday to demonstrate against the level of security in the country especially with the by-election violence.

According to Otokunor, the purpose of the demonstration was demand clear answers from the government about the violence at Ayawaso West Wuogon.

He said the party is giving the president up to one week to come up with a better explanation and answers to what happened at the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election.

The General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia had made similar pronouncements where he said the Commission of Inquiry is only a ploy to protect perpetrators of the violence.

According to him, the whole idea of the Commission is flawed at birth because the president did not follow the right procedure in setting up such commissions.

“I am surprised and even confused because there is a procedure for the setting up of a Commission of Inquiry, which procedure has not been followed at all. This Commission of Inquiry has been flawed at birth, so I want to believe it is a smokescreen move which the president is using to protect its own appointees,” he told Umaru Sanda on Eyewitness News on Wednesday.

The Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia announced that government had set up a Commission of Inquiry to probe circumstances that led to the violence that occurred during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election.

The Commission was set up with the consent of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who is out of the country

A former Commissioner at the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short is the Chairperson of the Commission while former Dean of the Faculty of Law of GIMPA and private legal practitioner, Mr. Ernest Kofi Abotsi has been appointed as Secretary to the Commission.

Other members of the Commission are Henrietta Mensah Bonsu and Patrick K. Acheampong.

The setting up of the commission followed the shooting incident that occurred near a La Bawaleshie polling centre that temporarily disrupted the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election and resulted in at least 13 persons sustaining injuries.

---CitinewsRoom