Volta Region or Togo? - The 2 versions of Hopeson Adorye's dynamite detonation claim

A leading member of Alan Kyerematen's Movement for Change (M4C), Hopeson Adorye, was arrested on May 22, 2024, for spreading false information.

His claims last month that he spearheaded an operation in 2016 that involved the detonation of dynamite during the election season is believed to be the reason for his detention.

Adorye said the operation was primarily to prevent supposed Togolese nationals from crossing over and voting in the 2016 general elections.

Despite claiming that initially that the operation happened in the Volta Region, he subsequently clarified that the incident actually happened in Togo where he actively engaged traditional leaders to thwart the illegal voters from coming in to vote.

GhanaWeb looks at the two versions of Adorye's claims:

We detonated dynamite in Volta Region during 2016 elections:

During an interview on Accra FM, Hopeson Adorye, who is now the director of special duties for Alan Kyerematen's Movement for Change, said the blasting of dynamite in the Volta Region during the election was to scare away voters in the opposition stronghold.

"Prior to the elections, we blasted dynamite in parts of the Volta Region, and that scared many people.

"When I finished casting my ballot in Tema, I drove to the Volta Region, and when I asked for the number of people who had voted and the expected number of voters, it turned out people did not come out to vote," he stated.

Adorye backtracks over dynamite comment?

Speaking in an interview on Onua TV, on May 16, 2024, Adorye clarified that the operation he led, which involved the use of explosives, all happened within the borders of Togo, not Ghana.

He said that he constituted a team and took them to Togo to engage the traditional authorities of communities bordering Ghana, to urge them to speak to their people so they would not cross the border to vote in the 2016 elections.

“There is this issue in the Volta Region during elections that Togolese came and registered to vote. In 2016, they came to register alright, but I took it upon myself to disable the system so that they would not come and vote.

“I chose a team and made them swear an oath that they were not going to inform the regional executives of what we were going to do,” he narrated in Twi.

He added, “We had a relation who grew up there (Togo) and he had a good relationship with the traditional authorities there. So, he moved us from one authority to the other so we could engage them. When we met them, we gave them a lot of money (CFA) for them to use for advocacy, radio announcements and the like.”

Adorye, a former New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary hopeful, also indicated that the other part of his strategy was to create a situation which would make Togolese nationals afraid to cross the border to vote during the 2016 election, which was where the explosion came in.

He said that he told the Togolese that things were going to happen if they attempted to cross the border to go and vote, and the explosion and the commotion after it were used for that purpose.

He insisted that everything, including the explosion, happened in Togo and not the Volta Region as some people are asserting.

“I told them that things were going to happen so they should not come… Because of what we told them, we put things in order. Everything that happened took place in Togo. Those saying it happened in the Volta Region, if you throw this (dynamite) at a polling station, won't people die? Who in the Volta Region can say that there was an explosion in his or her area?

“And I gated the people. After it (the explosion), I made them take off on the motorbikes. There was a commotion, and the people started saying that what we told them had started happening. It was a strategy. Everything happened in Togo,” he reiterated.

He added that security officials of Ghana, including the Inspector-General of Police cannot invite him over what happened because it occurred outside the jurisdiction of the country.

TWI NEWS

He also chastised the NPP for not rewarding him and the people he mobilised for the operation.

It can be recalled that veteran journalist, Kwami Sefa Kayi, called on security agencies to arrest and investigate Hopeson Adorye for claiming that the ruling New Patriotic Party used dynamites to intimidate voters in the Volta Region during the 2016 general elections.

SARA

Click here to follow the GhanaWeb General News WhatsApp channel

Watch the latest Episode of Everyday People below: