I stand by my 'protect the ballot' comment — Bugri Naabu

The New Patriotic Party Northern regional chairman, Daniel Bugri Naabu says he will not stop urging the party supporters to vigorously protect ballot boxes on election day.

Mr. Naabu repeated the call hours after he honoured police invitation to assist investigations into similar comments he made at Savelugu.

He said the party will deploy at least 40 strongmen to every polling station to guard ballot boxes on Election Day.

His comments were roundly condemned by individuals and election monitoring organizations including WANEP.

The NDC party in the region also held a press conference and called for his arrest.

The police in the region was compelled to invite him following an instruction by the Inspector General of police (IGP) for a full scale investigation.

He turned up on Saturday, days after the invitation but was granted police enquiry bail.

However, the chairman immediately from the police station moved to a rally platform at Sagnarigu and unambiguously encouraged party supporters to “chase, push down, and collect" ballot boxes from thieves on election day.

"You are all police, because you have interest in there. Therefore you must make sure you protect it yourself. Therefore the Election Day, the ballot box, open your [eyes] and look at it well. Don’t allow anybody to change boxes; don't allow anybody to manipulate the elections. Please anybody who comes to steal the box chase him, push him down and take the box and hand him over to the police.

“I’m telling you we won't sit down for somebody to cheat us. We must be awake and see to it that we protect our interest,” Bugri told the chanting crowd.

When Starr News contacted Mr. Naabu over why he repeated the comments that nearly got him behind police bars, he said “I will keep on telling people to make vigilance to protect the ballot box. I will not stop it.

"…Because that ballot box NPP has vote in there. Do we allow those votes to be taken away, and Ghanaians to vote for us [and] allow NDC to take the votes, change it and declare the vote for themselves? Master it can never work."

He said the party cannot entirely trust the police after it failed to arrest gunmen who fired gunshots at the Electoral Commission’s office in Tamale during the just ended voters’ transfer exercise.