Boko Haram to arrive in Ghana if

Talk of stopping aliens from biometric registration

GHANA TO GO ‘BOKO HARAM’

… Northerners, Settlers in Ashanti, B/A & Eastern Regions send alarm bells to Government

Intelligence and credible reports reaching The Hajj reveal that Ghana may soon join the ranks of Niger and Cameroon to have a feel of the activities of the radical Islamist Boko Haram, if the opposition NPP attempts to stop certain voters from taking part in the biometric registration in their stronghold of Ashanti region

An influential Islamic Cleric based in the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi who does not want his identity reveal for the time being, disclosed to The Al-Hajj early this week that if the largest opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), an off-shoots of Dr. Busia’s Progress Party (PP) attempt to disenfranchise Muslims and Northerners this time round, they will face stiff resistance.

According to him, it has always been the modus-operandi of the NPP since the inception of the Fourth Republic Constitution in 1992 to disenfranchise people of northern descent and who are also Muslims in their strongholds of Ashanti region.

The NPP has been using deception and intimidation to disenfranchise voters from settler communities in Ashanti region ostensibly because they see them as supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC). Citing specific examples, the Islamic cleric said in the 2008 elections, even Ashanti women who converted into Islam in Ejisu were stripped, beaten and denied voting without anyone raising a qualm.

“This time round we shall not tolerate these barbaric, tribal supremacists syndrome in our own motherland and we are prepared to do worst than Nigeria’s Boko Haram if the NPP attempts to repeat this tactics in this election beginning from the biometric registration exercise ”,he warned.

Continuing, he said “the UP/NPP tradition have often looked at the people of northern descent and Muslims in general as inferior and less Ghanaians, I am therefore appealing to the government and security agencies to put in stringent measures to avoid a show-down between our youth and the NPP”.

Meanwhile, snippets of information picked up in Offinso, Kintampo, Salaga, Attebubu, Ejura, Akim Oda and some settler communities in parts of Eastern and Ashanti regions indicate that, radical youth are planning to give a helping hand to any of their brethren harassed or intimidated in any of the NPP strongholds in the country.

It will be re-called that various NPP functionaries and leading members have in recent times voiced out what they see as attempts by the ruling party to encourage aliens from Togo, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast to take part in the impending biometric registration.

A member of the NPP Communications Team, Titus Glover, has alleged that the government of the NDC is issuing fake Ghanaian birth certificates to Burkinabe nationals to enable them partake in the up-coming biometric voter registration He made this allegation on Adom TV’s BADWAM show on Multi TV. Again, a Ghana News Agency (GNA) report quoted a TESCON Alumni, a youth wing within the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Brong-Ahafo expressing concern about what they see as “the sudden influx of foreign nationals to some parts of the region ahead of the new biometric voters’ registration exercise. At a press conference in Sunyani, the group observed that the number of the immigrants, suspected to have come from Burkina Faso, Niger and Cote D’Ivoire continued to increase especially at Odumase and Chiraa in Sunyani West District. “These people are also armed and pose a threat to the lives of the people in Sunyani West Constituency”, Mr. Stephen Opuni, Coordinator of the wing stated. Mr. Opuni called on the government, security agencies, political parties and the Electoral Commission (EC) to act swiftly and intervene to ensure “these foreign national are not registered when the registration exercise begins”.