PHOTO: �NDC Cutlass� Out In Kyebi

Some operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) are bent on using any means to cling on to power. Soon after their �Nana Akufo-Addo in Oxford University� fiasco, NDC apparatchiks have come out with a new strategy targeted at undermining the New Patriotic Party presidential candidate�s chances. They have produced machetes or cutlasses branded in NPP colours and with the inscription �All Die Be Die� to tag NPP supporters as plotting violence. Credible information from the camp of the NPP in the Eastern Region says that those machetes were to be given to hired thugs to cause mayhem, especially in the Eastern Region where Nana Akufo-Addo comes from. This is to give meaning to the �all die be die� mantra espoused by the NPP flag-bearer and to show that indeed Nana Akufo-Addo is violent. �The All Die Be Die� mantra was espoused by the NPP flag-bearer to encourage supporters of the party to be vigilant and stand for their electoral right on Election Day. When President John Mahama visited the Eastern Region last week and went to Kyebi, the hometown of Nana Akufo-Addo, NDC supporters attacked NPP supporters for allegedly showing insubordination towards the president by openly wearing NPP T-shirts and attending the party�s rally to allegedly distribute NPP leaflets to NDC supporters. �Yebedi Keke� After the president�s visit to Kyebi last Friday, NPP supporters, in a hired taxi, were also attacked allegedly by NDC supporters at Kyebi Zongo the following day and the taxi vandalised. They went ahead to vandalise the shop of one NPP man popularly called �Future� for allegedly leading the NPP supporters to taunt President Mahama with the slogan �Yebedi Keke.� The attacks led to other reprisals in which some NDC supporters were said to have been assaulted in retaliation. NDC deputy general secretary George Lawson indicated on Okay FM, a private radio station in Accra, that it was the NPP supporters who rather attacked NDC with the alleged machetes branded in NPP colours inscribed �All Die Be Die.� The Eastern regional police boss, DCOP Kwabena Gyamera-Yeboah, confirmed on the same radio station that indeed an NPP supporter attacked an NDC supporter with the said machete and that he really saw a sample of the said machete. Bad Name The NPP in the region has taken strong exception to these allegations that the party supporters attacked NDC supporters with �All Die Be Die� machetes. According to the first vice regional chairman of the party, Alhaji Umar Bodinga, the whole �All Die Be Die� episode at Kyebi was a carefully planned thing by the NDC to give NPP a bad name and hang it. �We have heard from credible sources within their camp that a lot of these machetes have been produced by the NDC with NPP T-shirts with the same �All Die Be Die� inscription and would be distributed to some hired thugs to cause mayhem, especially in the Abuakwa South and Abuakwa North constituencies on election day,� he said. He called on the police in the region to investigate the source of the said �All Die Be Die� machetes if indeed they had seen samples. �We wonder why the police have not been able to arrest any person in connection with the �All Die Be Die� machete. We believe they are being used by operatives of the NDC in the region,� he noted.