Police Arrest 11 For Electoral Misbehaviour

Eleven suspects including three who burnt electoral materials at the Kwashieman Cluster of Schools Collation Centre in the Ablekuma North Constituency, in Greater Accra, have been arrested by the police. Eight of the suspects were arrested at polling stations at Dansoman, Odorkor, Nima and Korle-Bu on Friday for multiple registration and impersonation. The other three were arrested during the extended voting on Saturday. According to the Regional Crime Officer, Chief Superintendent Frank Adufati , the eight suspects after casting their votes, went back to the same polling station to cast another vote and they were arrested. He said all the suspects are currently in custody at the various police stations and are being processed for court on Monday. He gave the names of the three who set fire to the electoral materials as Adani Issifu, 37 a trader from Abossey Okai Zongo, Mohammed Ali, 31 a Graphic Designer from Ayigbe Town and Raship Imoro, a 32 year-old onion seller also from Ayigbe Town, all Accra suburbs. He said the three were in the company of seven others making them 10 in number who stormed the collation centre while counting was in process and started struggling with the security men who managed to secure the ballot and arrested three of the suspects. Chief Superintendent Adufati said the seven others managed to escape arrest but a search had been mounted for them. He said luckily, none of the ballot boxes was compromised but the thugs managed to get hold of some collation sheets which they quickly set on fire. According to an eyewitness, Nii Allotey, on Saturday evening after voting had ended at the Kwashieman Collation Centre in the Ablekuma North constituency, a group of men arrived at the centre in two cars and motorbikes, fully armed. He said they fired shots into the air and left. An Electoral officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, alleged that the group of men were believed to have been hired by one of the candidates contesting in the constituency. He indicated that the men forced their way into the collation room despite the presence of security personnel, demanding to be shown who the EC officer in charge was but they all refused to give him away. We were all terrified with the authority with which the leader of the group conducted himself he said, adding that when they did not answer, the leader of the group said �then somebody will have to die.� According to the Electoral officer, on hearing him, the police officer in charge confronted him and he left with his men. In a few minutes time, he said another group of people came to the collation centre with cutlasses and a pistol and set fire to the collation sheets, adding that after several attempts to open the room where the ballot boxes were being kept failed, the men took off. The police were able to arrest three of them.