An electoral exercise expected to proceed routinely on Friday, July 11, 2025, took a dramatic turn after some thugs pounced on former Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, Hawa Koomson, triggering chaos and widespread controversy.
The Ablekuma North constituency was holding a parliamentary rerun across 19 disputed polling stations following the December 2024 general elections.
The incident dominated headlines, talk shows, and social media across Ghana, forcing conversations about electoral violence, political thuggery, personal accountability, and the thin line between observation and provocation.
Ablekuma North Rerun: Former MP Hawa Koomson assaulted
Among those who arrived to observe the process was Mavis Hawa Koomson, the former Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East and former Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development.
At the Methodist Church (St. Peter’s) polling station in Odorkor, the atmosphere shifted.
What began as a tour of the voting centres quickly turned into an ‘ugly’ confrontation that went viral.
Videos that flooded social media and news platforms captured the moment a group of men overpowered the security presence, surged toward the former minister, and assaulted her.
She was pushed to the ground, kicked and dragged as chaos erupted around the station.
Police and others eventually intervened to pull her away to safety, but she sustained some injuries from the assault and was subsequently admitted to the hospital for treatment.
Two other individuals, including NPP deputy organiser Chris Lloyd Nii Kwei and Majeed Mohammed Sanaa, were also attacked in separate incidents for the same exercise.
'Hawa Koomson's attack was revenge by thugs from Darkuman' – Eyewitness alleges
In the hours and days after the event, two opposing narratives emerged.
One version held that Koomson herself had provoked the violence.
Eyewitnesses pointed to her history, her decision to return to the station after an earlier visit, and reports that she pulled out pepper spray when confronted by men demanding that she leave the premises.
Some political opponents held that her “boisterous posture” and refusal to heed police instructions sparked tension that quickly escalated into open combat.
Some even claimed the assault was a form of long-simmering payback.
Through all this, Hawa Koomson insisted she was there simply to support the NPP candidate and observe the process when a group of men whom she described as NDC-affiliated “thugs” or “machomen” attacked her.
She said she used the pepper spray purely in self-defence after hearing one of them shout for her by name and brandish knives.
Ablekuma North Election: Court convicts 8 for 'beating' Hawa Koomson, others
According to her, the attack was unprovoked but a targeted act against a political opponent.
Videos, images of the former minister on the ground, the shouts, the intervention by the police, and the temporary suspension of voting at the station became the defining visuals of the Ablekuma North rerun.
Watch the incident below.
VKB/VPO
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