Guards for President hopefuls - Jacob Osei Yeboah snubbed

An independent presidential candidate in the 2012 elections, Jacob Osei Yeboah, popularly known as JOY, has complained about his neglect by the Inspector General of Police as far as the allocation of police guards to presidential hopefuls and their running mates in the forthcoming elections, is concerned.

Police chief John Kudalor said in Ho, the Volta regional capital, that guards had been conditioned and equipped to offer professional protection for all flagbearers and running mates.

He said: “Providing protection for this kind of personalities entails a great deal of trust, so we met the candidates and asked them to choose any of our men that they want to guard them, some of them presented a list of their preferred officers, but others left that decision to us.”

But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Thursday July 21, in connection with the exhibition of the register of voters by the Electoral Commission (EC), JOY made the point that just as the election management body continued to neglect him in its election-related programmes, the IGP had also failed to include him in the Police Service’s security package for presidential hopefuls, although he will be contesting as an independent candidate in this year’s elections.

“The EC forum on the voters’ register, I was not invited, always they discriminate against me. IPAC meetings, I’m out because I don’t belong to a political party. Even the police protection for the flagbearers, they say I am not a party so I am excluded. I don’t know what people are thinking; they want me to organise a convention for the EC to acclaim me as flagbearer but I am not a party so I can’t do that. I am no-party president,” he observed.

“What Ghana and Africa needs is what Benin has done [where an independent candidate won the election to be president].”