Felicia Adjei
The mass registration exercise currently being carried out by the National Identification Authority (NIA) in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions turned chaotic when the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Kintampo South, Felicia Adjei, disrupted it with heavily built men, aka macho men.
The unruly incident occurred at one of the centres at Jema, the district capital of Kintampo South.
The MP stormed the centre with some NDC constituency executives and macho men to disrupt the exercise, forcing the NIA officials to end the exercise for the day.
The NDC MP and her macho men allegedly rained insults on and assaulted the NIA officials on duty, making officers of the authority to run for their lives.
An official complaint was lodged with the police but no arrest had been made as of press time on Saturday.
The NDC MP in the company of her constituency chairman and secretary as well as macho men entered the Jema Methodist Primary registration centre last Saturday at about 11:24 am and suddenly began accusing the personnel of making ‘the system too slow’ and also registering only New Patriotic Party (NPP) members.
The legislator, who first introduced herself as part of the committee in Parliament responsible for the exercise, engaged the NIA officials in verbal exchanges which led to the unfortunate incident.
“At about 11:24 am, I saw a V-8 vehicle coming towards the registration centre. When it reached the centre, the MP and about six persons came out of the vehicle. She first asked one of the officers why our system was too slow,” an NIA official at the scene of the incident told DAILY GUIDE on condition of anonymity.
“It was explained to her that it was not the case that the system was slow but rather the long procedures that one needed to through rather made the exercise slow. The MP was not satisfied with the explanation and started murmuring and so the officer asked her to talk to the Supervising Registration Officer (SRO), who is responsible for the centre,” the source said.
“Then one of the macho men who came with her queried the officer for speaking on top of his voice with the MP.Then all of a sudden, one of the macho men hit one of our Card Verification Officers (CVO). It appears to me that it was carefully planned just to cause commotion and disrupt our work because we have not recorded any such incident here ever since we started,” the source narrated.
“I am an NDC member, my sister even holds an executive position in the NDC but the truth is that it is never true that we are only registering NPP members because we don’t ask anyone his/her party affiliation before we begin the process. Surprisingly, the MP stood unconcerned while her boys insulted and assaulted us,” the source said.
Two other NIA officials told the paper that “the incident really happened and after that the exercise was halted.”
The MP, when reached by the police for her comments, said it was not her ‘intention’ to cause confusion at the centre.
When contacted, the police confirmed the incident and said they were investigating it.
danielyaodayee@yahoo.com
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Kintampo