The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Central Region, is set to intervene in the case involving the Ekumfi Otabanadzi teacher, Daniel Hammond, who is in prison custody for allegedly insulting the District Chief Executive (DCE) of the area, Ibrahim Dawson.
There have been suspicions that his arrest and subsequent detention was politically motivated.
The Central Regional Secretary of the NDC, Sampson Ahianyo, told Citi News that the party has officially stepped in to resolve the matter.
“The whole case is a controversial issue so we have not concluded on it. We are now going into the case so in due course you will hear from us. We are expediting action on this and we are not joking at all. It’s a family matter so we are handling it as a family,”Mr. Ahianyuo said.
GNAT, wife appeals for his release
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the wife of the detained teacher have demanded the teacher’s release.
The teary wife made the appeal when she was accompanied by some twenty people made up of relatives, colleague teachers and members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to console her husband at the Winneba local prison where he is serving his one-week remand.
“I am here to visit my Husband because he has been remanded here. The children are crying and even the little girl wanted to speak to daddy because she speaks to her every day. On Tuesday, she wanted to talk to daddy but when we called the phone was off, and I couldn’t explain to her. Today [Wednesday] too she asked me; and the little boy too wants to see his daddy. I am not happy at all and I am pleading with the government to come in and release my husband for me because I know he is innocent,” a teary Christiana Hammond told Citi News’ Akwesi Koranteng.
The teacher’s ‘crime’
The teacher, who is a former Presiding Member of the Ekumfi District Assembly, told Citi News that his supposed crime is that, he notified the DCE of some discrepancies in the President’s ‘Accounting to the People’ address regarding some construction work at Ekumfi-Esuehyia, also in the Central Region.
“So as a former presiding member of the assembly, I thought it wise to inform my DCE and the only thing I heard from my DCE was ‘how does it concern you?’ in a very harsh way,” Mr Hammond recounted.
“I was in the class room teaching and I saw two police men approaching the school. The whole thing was that my DCE had reported me to police that I had insulted him so I should go to the police station with them.”
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