General News of Saturday, 23 February 2019
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2019-02-23NDC Polls: Goosie Tanoh's Western Regional Campaign Coordinator arrested and detained
Hundreds of people trooped to the polling station to vote
The Western Regional Campaign Co-ordinator for Goosie Tanoh, Joel Ndede popularly known as Hon. Arise is in the grips of the Jomoro District Police Command at Tikobo No. 1 police station for allegedly campaigning for John Mahama.
The incident happened at the Bonyere voting center, a few hours after voting started.
Joel Ndede who was in the
Read full articleJomoro Constituency to monitor the primaries was spotted by the police displaying John Mahama's poster.
According to Goosie Tanoh's Coordinator, some supporters of Mahama were sharing food and money to prospective voters to influence them to vote for Mahama.
To his dismay, he was affronted by the police and was rather accused of displaying Mahama's poster a claim he denied.
"How can I be a Western Regional Campaign Coordinator for Mr. Goosie Tanoh and campaigning on voting day for Mr. John Mahama, this is impossible. The fact is that when I got to the voting centre, I saw with my naked eyes that campaign managers of former President John Mahama were given food and money to some delegates to vote for their candidate and I also displayed some sampled ballot papers to some delegates to also vote for Mr. Goosie Tanoh so I don't see the reason why the police has arrested me, this is unfair to intimidate Goosie Tanoh's supporters," he narrated this to our correspondent at the police station.
He added, "I'm appealing to Goosie Tanoh to pull out from the race and allow John Mahama to contest because this is unfair and it is against our internal democracy".
As of the time of filing this story, Joel Ndede was still detained at the Tikobo No. 1 police station.
The Jomoro District Police Commander, DSP Zeprain Zenge, told GhanaWeb that they arrested the Campaign Coordinator for displaying John Mahama's poster to some delegates.
He said their reason for the arrest was to prevent future disturbances at the voting centre; he will be released after voting.
One of the Campaign Team members of Goosie Tanoh, Enoch Clement expressed his disappointment over the incident and described it as a away of intimidating Goosie Tanoh's campaign team.
He alleged that all the Constituency Executives are campaigning for former President John Mahama and he mentioned the Constituency Secretary, Women's Organizer, Zongo Coordinator for openly campaigning for former President John Mahama.
Over one thousand delegates are currently casting their votes for the seven presidential aspirants in the Jomoro Constituency.
They include; former President John Dramani Mahama, Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin; former Vice Chancellor of University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Joshua Alabi; former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah; former Trade Minister Ekwow Spio-Garbrah; businessman Nurideen Iddrisu and cadre, Goosie Tanoh.
Some political pundits in Ghana have predicted a landslide victory for the former President John Mahama who has been overwhelmingly endorsed by rank and file of the party before this race.
