Police deploys SWAT team to headquarters as Mornah meets CID today

The Ghana Police Service has undertaken a special deployment to its national headquarters.

A police memo signed by Dr Sayibu Pabi Gariba, DEPOL, on Tuesday, 2 June 2020, said: “In the preemptive deployment strategies, you are hereby directed to deploy to police headquarters as follows: “to deploy one platoon to take over public order management at the headquarters; to deploy adequate personnel at headquarters cafeteria exit, SWAT and transport gates under the supervision of an SPO.”

It coincides with a scheduled meeting between the police and the Chairman of the People’s National Convention, Mr Bernard Mornah.

Mr Mornah is honouring an invitation by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service concerning some comments he made with regard to the Electoral Commission’s decision to compile a new voter roll ahead of the 2020 polls.

Mr Mornah, who is the Convener of the Inter-Party Resistance Against New Register (IPRAN), a group that is kicking against the new roll, said on 26 May 2020 at a press conference, that: “We’ll beat and kill each other” should confusion arise at any voter ID card registration centre during the forthcoming exercise, thus, his invitation by the police.

He was expected to meet the CID at its headquarters at 10 am in Accra.

Meanwhile, the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said it endorses and subscribes to the caution given by Mr Mornah to the Electoral Commission (EC) in respect of a potential outbreak of political violence at registration centres, as a result of the exclusion of the existing voter ID card from the list of identification requirements the EC intends using in compiling a new voter register from June.

Reacting to Mr Mornah’s police invitation, the NDC, another party against the compilation of the register, noted in a statement signed by Mr Peter Boamah Otokunor, Deputy General Secretary (Operation) that: “We wish to state our unequivocal support for the caution Comrade Mornah offered to the EC at the said press conference, for purposes of emphasis, the NDC wholly endorses and subscribes fully to the comments made by Comrade Bernard Mornah.”

According to the NDC, the entrenched decision of the Jean Mensa-led EC to compile “a needless, illogical and wasteful new voter register for the 2020 general elections, has the tendency to spark chaos and electoral violence across the country.”

Furthermore, the NDC noted that the “continuous unjustifiable intransigence of the EC and flagrant disregard for stakeholder consultations and consensus building in the handling of the processes leading to the 2020 general elections are a recipe for confusion and democratic retrogression.”

The party said the invitation of Mr Mornah by the Ghana Police Service is nothing but “political puppetism” on the part of the law enforcement agency, and “part of a grand orchestration by the NPP government to intimidate and demobilise the front of the Resistance in its spirited opposition to the needless and illogical decision of the EC to compile a new voter register ahead of the 2020 polls.”

The NDC reiterated that it is convinced the Jean Mensa-led Electoral Commission is determined to skew the voter registration process in order to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters in order to rig the 2020 general elections for President Akufo-Addo and the governing NPP, adding that they shall employ every legitimate means to stop “this evil conspiracy of the EC, NIA and the ruling NPP.”

The NDC has, therefore, encouraged its supporters to rise in solidarity with Mr Mornah on Tuesday when he honours the police invitation at the CID headquarters.