‘State sponsored military terrorism in Asuogyaman must stop’ – Ampem Nyarko

National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament (MP) for Asuogyaman in the Eastern Region is alleging brutality on residents in the area in the ongoing voters registration exercise.

Thomas Ampem Nyarko in an interview with the press on Saturday alleged that two groups of military teams from the Jubilee House and Michel Camp were terrorizing residents in known NDC strongholds in the constituency.

“As I speak now we have two groups of military officers in Asuogyaman, one well uniformed military officers from Michel camp led by Lt. Col Daniel opoku and another group of the military in plain clothes led by one Sergeant Bio from the Jubilee House. These people are there tormenting the good people of Asuogayman,” Mr. Thomas Ampem Nyarko fumed.

Citing specific cases of brutalities to buttress his point, the NDC MP and parliamentary candidate said three registrants were on Wednesday, 8th July 2020, arrested by the military personnel at Dzidzokope, a known NDC stronghold and sent to the Atimpoku Police Station, for not wearing face masks.

He said this was contrary to what he witnessed at Akwamufie, a known NPP stronghold just two hours earlier were the same team of military men took time to educate the citizenry on the need to wear face masks.

“My question was that if you could educate the people in the NPP stronghold, why did you not find the need to educate the people in the NDC stronghold?” he quizzed rhetorically. “You cannot pick and choose how to treat these people and that is unfair.”

Another incident the first term lawmaker cited involved the military allegedly aiding officials of the NPP to register nonresidents in the area while at the same time siding with the NPP to drive away persons NPP agents suspected of being nonresidents.

“Whenever NDC agents suspect that the NPP has brought some people who do not qualify to register and are preventing them from registering, then these military men would be called and then they would pave way for the suspected nonresidents brought by the NPP to register and advise the NDC to challenge,” said Mr. Nyarko, adding that the military also aids the NPP agents to sack people the NPP suspect of being nonresidents.

The outraged legislator while calling for fair playing grounds for all sides of the political divide, said: “These are unfair treatments and so our men in uniforms must be seen to be treating everybody fairly irrespective of where they are from.”

He also cited an assault on a party agent by a known NPP member in the full glare of military personnel on the false account that he was taking a video recording of him, without any intervention from the military.

The actions of the security personnel, the legislator alleged, was ample testimony of the abhorrence of President Akuffo Addo and the NPP government for a credible electoral register nor for free and fair elections.

“Nana Addo and his NPP are not interested in any credible register and they are not interested in any free and fair election in this country,” he suggested.

Serving a strong warning to the government, Mr. Ampem Nyarko noted that the NDC would not hesitate to retaliate in full measure should the constituents continue to be attacked.

He said the developments have left the people with no choice but to consider other means of self-defense as more men from national security, specifically from the Jubilee House, had been brought to Asuogyaman, specifically to known NDC strongholds to terrorize and scare innocent residents from registering.

He was however happy that the people were not intimidated and were pouring to the registration centers to register and urged others yet to do so not to be intimidated by the actions of the military but to go out and register in order to “get the opportunity on the 7th of December to kick out this intolerant Nana Akuffo Addo Addo and his government.”