The Northern Regional Police Command has announced plans to seek a court injunction to compel opposition leaders to postpone their demonstration slated for today August 22, 2016.
Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE revealed that the police were informed about the ‘Times Are Hard’ demonstration but due to the protection of the Hajj pilgrims in the region, they advised the parties to postpone it.
Northern Regional Police Spokesman, ASP Ebenezer Tetteh, who confirmed this to DAILY GUIDE said, “we wrote to the demonstrators to postpone the demonstration and so if they have decided to go ahead with it, then I don’t know why they doing that.”
According to ASP Tetteh, “We will seek an injunction from the court to stop them from embarking on the demonstration on Monday.
The protestors are embarking on the historic demonstration in Tamale against the current Mahama administration for failing to alleviate the plight of the people.
This is the first time in the region’s recent history that all the major opposition political parties are coming together to demonstrate against the government.
The largest opposition party- the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Convention People’s Party (CPP), National Democratic Party (NDP), Progressive People’s Party (PPP), People’s National Convention (PNC) and Hassan Ayariga’s All Peoples Congress (APC) are all working together to ensure peaceful demonstration, dubbed, ‘Di Mi Ya,’ in Dagbani today.
Spokesperson of the Planning Committee, Mohammed Abdul Kudu told DAILY GUIDE that the people of the Northern region were unhappy with the high electricity tariffs, fuel prices and unemployment rate.
Mohammed Abdul Kudu said, “The people of the North feel used, abused and misused by the President and his strong army of MPs and Ministers from here.
“The leaders of all the opposition parties here, conscious of the depressing sentiment on the ground, held a series of meetings over several months and finally took a collective decision that we could not just sit quietly while our people here in the North continue to endure worsening hardship, with the President and his appointees showing no concern.”
Abdul Kudu added: “We believe we have been worst hit by the reckless economic management and corruption in the country. Our schools and hospitals are struggling and lack basic supplies. The sick are dying: our kids are failing in school. Our farms are dry.
“Our farmers are no longer getting subsidised items from the state. We see billions of dollars being borrowed and spent but harvests here continue to be poor because investments in irrigation by the state and the inputs have stopped coming.
“Many people have lost their jobs and many businesses have closed down because of killer electricity tariffs, and when hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in our name, like with SADA, we, the intended beneficiaries, do not benefit and not a single person is punished. It only means that the President supports the maltreatment we are receiving.”
From Eric Kombat, Tamale