Odododiodoo: Tagoe Found the Going Tough

AS the voting process was going on at the Temporary Bukom Square Polling Station in the Odododiodioo consti-tuency, Madam Theresa Tagoe, Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry was spotted at 11.00 a.m., leading party members to vote, but she was prevented from doing so.

That was when on-lookers started shouting at her to leave the scene. Some shouted, ?Amerley we don?t need you here, leave our territory?. The NPP campaigner was then given protection by the security as she struggled to get into her car.

But not satisfied, Madam Theresa Tagoe and other NPP leading members, including Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Tourism and Modernisation of the Capital, and Sheik I. C. Quaye the Greater Accra Regional Minister, followed by some party supporters, trooped to the Ghana Railway Station Polling Station, regarded as one of the strong-holds of the ruling party.

However, luck was not on their side as the Acting General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Bede A. Ziedeng was the Polling Agent for his party there.

Mr Ziedeng became very vigilant and suspicious and discovered that most of the voting documents in the possession of those brought there did not tally with that of the EC voters register and insisted that he would not allow them to vote.

This created a scene, and in the process a policeman on duty asked Mr Ziedeng: ?Don?t you know that this woman is a Minister??, but he retorted that "as the Acting General Secretary of my party, I am more than qualified to be here?.

Eventually, those who were brought in were not allowed to vote. Strangely, Mr Bede Ziedeng was attacked when leaving the scene after voting had ended, by thugs who were trailing him in a taxi.

The policemen on duty managed to arrest the three thugs and locked them up in the James Town Police Station, while Mr Ziedeng was rushed to the 37 Military Hospital for immediate attention.

Earlier, another scene had occurred at the Palladium Cinema Polling Station which is adjacent to the NPP office. When the NDC and other parties suspected that ballot boxes were being stocked there and decided to surround the office and demanded that the office be closed.

The Polling Station was then reallocated, while other party officials including Mr. E. T. Mensah MP for Prampram were permitted to inspect the office but found nothing.