Ghana’s security officers should refuse guard duties at polling stations on December 7, the chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti Region, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, has said.
Mr Boasiako, also known as Chairman Wontumi, said he was issuing a “counter-order” to members of the security services to disregard orders from their superiors following what he said are efforts to “frustrate” and “disenfranchise” some security officials.
He made the comments on Thursday December 1 at the Central Police Station in Kumasi where he had visited some polling stations to observe the special voting exercise being conducted for security service personnel, staff of Ghana’s Electoral Commission, journalists and other persons who will be engaged on voting day.
Some security persons had earlier expressed their frustrations to Accra FM’s Owoahene Addae Mununkum that they could not find their names on the roll for the special poll, a development Mr Boasiako felt was part of a grand conspiracy between President John Mahama and EC chairperson Charlotte Osei to rig the 2016 elections.
“With what is happening right now, if they don’t take care and decide to rig the polls for the NDC, I, Chairman Wontumi, say, we will not accept the results today or tomorrow. [If they dare], violence will break out in Ghana,” he warned.
According to him, at one polling centre at the Prisons Service in Kumasi, there were 700 officers supposed to vote but the register held just over 200 names, while at the police headquarters in Kumasi, some officers had no idea which station they were to go and vote.
“What we are saying is that if President Mahama and Charlotte Osei want to frustrate them (security officers), they should not provide security for the [December 7] polls. No one should go [and secure any polling station],” he said.
“I am giving a counter-order that no one should go. I am giving an order as a ‘governor’, I am giving an order to the security not to show up. They should go and vote at the polling stations they are registered [on December 7].
“So, I am pleading with police officers that they should heed no orders from their bosses. What identifies you as a Ghanaian is your right to vote. So if you are disenfranchised, then where are your liberties as a police officer or soldier?”