Ursula Owusu�s Posters Defaced

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma West, Ms Ursula Owusu, has urged the Dansoman Police to expedite action and bring those behind the destruction and defacing of her billboards and fliers to book. Ms Owusu, who pointed accusing fingers at the National Democratic Congress (NDC), said she had refused to respond in kind and urged all NPP supporters and sympathisers to remain calm in the face of the police investigations. Briefing the media at the Exhibition Roundabout at Dansoman in Accra, close to where some of the fliers have been torn into pieces, she added that �Even the flag directly in front of the Dansoman Police Station was not spared, showing the level of impunity exhibited by these people�. Checks by reporters who were at the news conference indicated that almost all the NPP billboards, banners, flags and posters along the entire length of the Dansoman High Street from the Roundabout to Last Stop had been either destroyed or defaced. She told the media that �I have also had numerous phone calls from irate and incensed NPP members and supporters who wanted to teach the NDC that they did not have a monopoly over violence, but I have sought to calm them down and cautioned restraint in respect for the memory of Alhaji Aliu whose body was still warm.� �We want the NDC to know that we will resist any further acts of intimidation and violence they plan and are ready to face them boot for boot prior to and on election day if they should dare provoke us again, but we will not cast the first stone� she said. Explaining how it all stated, Ms Owusu said although the problem had been occurring it took a widespread and calculated turn when the party postponed its planned rally for last Saturday in honour of the memory of the late former Vice President Alahji Aliu Mahama. She said in preparation for the rally, the party in the constituency had posted new flexi posters on all the trees and poles along the High Street and hung new banners at the venue, which we intended to leave till the election, but a night before the rally date, some organised thugs destroyed all of them. Ms Owusu alleged that the systematic destruction of all campaign material led the NPP to the inevitable conclusion that such actions were planned at the highest level in the NDC and implemented when we in the NPP were most vulnerable as we were focused on the death of Alhaji Aliu Mahama. According to her, the scale of the destruction could not have been the random act of a deranged individual as it was obviously a planned action, explaining that this was not the first time her billboards had been destroyed here and we have made several complaints to the police, however, this is the first time it has happened on this scale in one attack. She claimed that some weeks ago, the Dansoman Police Divisional Commander invited the leadership of both parties to discuss the emerging security concerns in the constituency. After waiting for one and half hours, the NDC delegation showed up without their Parliamentary Candidate. Ms Owusu said her NDC counterpart, Ms Victoria Hamah, who walked in 30 minutes after her party leadership had entered, walked out of the meeting before it ended, �treating the Divisional Commander who summoned the meeting and all of us present with contempt�.