President Akufo-Addo has expressed his commitment to investigate the reported military brutalities that characterized the just ended voter’s registration exercise.
According to the President, he will set up a committee to thoroughly investigate these claims, as part of a consensus reached at a meeting with Chiefs from the Volta region.
“The lingering anxiety about the deployment led to a delegation of Chiefs from the Volta regional house of Chiefs led by its President, coming to see me at Jubilee House on what I believed was termed ‘the military invasion of the Volta region’.
“We had what I considered, to be frank, a mutually respectful discussions and after two and half hours, I suggested to them that I will set up a committee composed of members from both sides to interrogate further, the matters they had brought so we can have a satisfactory resolution. In other words, these confidential discussions were not completed and as I waited to get the names of the three nominees from the eminent Chiefs, some members of the delegation started making public statements about what they said had taken place at the meeting”.
He further made overtures of help in offering his assistance to the chief in dealing with the matter which riled up the contention on military deployment to the Region.
“So the first thing to say, I am going to go ahead, if the Chiefs are still prepared to submit the names of their three nominees as was agreed to constitute this committee to resolve quickly all the issues and reassure everybody. Hopefully, this would allow us to deal with the matter of the border post at Leklebi Kame which provoked such controversies and the incident in the town of Honuta which gave birth to the allegations of military harassment; corrective measures if called for will be instituted. There are currently 1,000 military personnel deployed along the country’s borders, of which 163 are deployed along the Volta Region border”.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) parliamentary candidate for Ketu South, Dzifa Gomashie believes President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was misled on the issue of military deployment to the country’s borders and some communities of the Volta Region during the voter registration exercise.
Reacting to the president’s decision to form a committee to investigate the alleged brutalities in the Volta Region, she stated that the development was troubling following the contradictory remarks made by the President and his appointees.
“I think that His Excellency President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is being misled again because even if the military deployment wasn’t just to the Volta Region or Ketu South, it started in the Volta Region and his own colleagues and appointees spoke in the media and confirmed the fact that the military was deployed there for specific reasons.
“Do you not find it exhausting that every time there is one explanation or the other for the same act? Depending on who is speaking there is always a different reason for why the military was there and for those of us who live in the constituency we don’t see anything wrong with them explaining through one person what exactly it is they sought to do. So, depending on who is speaking and on what platform they are on, the reasons for bringing the military into the community are different, that in itself is troubling, and we don’t know who to trust, or who is speaking the truth,” she stated.
