Machomen Evade Akwatia

Information reaching daily guide indicates that several well-built men usually called �machomen� have stormed the mining town of Akwatia which is scheduled to hold a by-election next Tuesday. These men are said to have been recruited from Ejura in the Ashanti region while others arrived from the northern parts of the country, mainly Tamale. According to sources, over 20 strongly-built men were conveyed from the Ejura-Sekyeredumase constituency to the diamond-rich town in seven different pick-ups last Monday, and had been given two major assignments before, during and after the August 18, 2009 re-run. Daily Guide gathered that these machomen were allegedly used in the Ashanti region during the December 2008 elections. Deep-throat sources claim the hoodlums had been assigned to cause pandemonium during voting and possibly disrupt the counting process. At the same time, another group from Obuasi, calling itself �Al-Qaeda�, is also on standby. The �Al Qaeda� boys, whose official uniform is black �T� shirts with white inscription of their group�s name at the back, are mainly composed of illegal miners popularly known as �galamseyers�. The dreaded �Azorka� boys from Tamale, according to reports from Akwatia, have been in the town for sometime now campaigning alongside the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate. Daily Guide has gathered that the former New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP of the area, Kiston Akomeng Kissi, who allegedly alerted NPP supporters of plots to bring in machomen on election day, has been invited by the police to write a statement to that effect. The police is said to be contemplating putting him before court today in order to get a restraining order, barring him from the polling centres. In a telephone interview, Hon. Kissi said he only told his party people at a funeral that they should be vigilant in order to avoid a repetition of what happened on December 7, 2008, when hoodlums seized ballot boxes in six polling stations, only to be invited by the Regional Police Command over the matter.He was directed to see the Akwatia police to write a statement, after which he was released. It will be recalled that the Electoral Commission (EC) could not declare the winner of the polls for the constituency in the 2008 parliamentary elections due to the violence which disrupted the election process in the six polling stations. After a long legal battle between Dr Kofi Asare, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate, and Baba Jamal of the NDC, the Supreme Court finally gave the EC the green light to organize the polls in the six polling stations and declare the results. Baba Jamal had prayed the Supreme Court to order the EC to re-run the elections for the whole constituency but his case was thrown out, thereby paving the way for the August 18, 2009 six polling station re-run. Pundits who are familiar with the voting trend in the six polling stations have tipped the NPP candidate, Dr Kofi Asare, who is also a former Ashanti Regional Director of the Ghana Health Services, to win.