The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has questioned the posture of government in the handling of the controversial Mahindra vehicles which led to the arrest of the Managing Director of Granite and Marble, Dr Edmund Ayo Ani.
Late last week, pictures of some Mahindra vehicles allegedly meant for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) but branded in the colours of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) with pictures of President Mahama printed on them went viral on social media.
They were spotted at a location along the Spintex Road in Accra where they were being kept and rebranded. Other Mahindra vehicles were also captured on video being driven on the Kintampo-Kumasi highway.
This caught the attention of many political watchers, thereby raising eyebrows.
But the NPP thinks there is more than merely meets the eye on what Ghanaians are being told about the vehicles.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, Director of Communications of the party, Nana Akomea, wondered “why if the NDC had genuinely bought Pick-ups for their campaign, people will be detained and questioned by the BNI on suspicion of having taken pictures of the vehicles.”
He also could not fathom why after pictures of the vehicles went viral, they were surreptitiously moved at dawn under police guard while that section of the Spintex road was blocked.
“Could there be some truth then in the conjecture that there was something untoward about the Pick-ups, that they were indeed public properties which have been commandeered by the NDC for the 2016 campaign?” he asked, wondering whether this is not another case of taxpayers’ monies being employed in the prosecution of the NDC’s campaign and abuse of incumbency.
Abuse Of Power
For him, “Even if Mr Kamara believed the privacy of his property had been violated, his course of action should be a civil case. By ordering the BNI to arrest his neighbours because he suspects them to have taken the pictures and violated his privacy, Mr Kamara will stand accused of using his official position to coerce and intimidate civilians.”
In view of that, Nana Akomea insisted, “Mr Kamara is taking Ghana back to the regime of settling civil disputes through the use of the coercive tools of the criminal justice system of the state,” a trend he described as “very dangerous” and therefore urged all Ghanaians to stand up against this unfortunate development.
Even before the truth or otherwise regarding the claim that the vehicles were meant for the NCCE could be verified, National Security Advisor to the President, Alhaji Baba Kamara, had ordered the arrest of Ani on suspicion of taking and circulating those pictures on social media.
Subsequently, the vehicles which were said to be numbering over 50 were moved out of what looked like an abandoned plot of land which Baba Kamara claims to be his and driven at top speed to an unknown location.
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