NPP accuses police of cover up

• Posted on June 2, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is accusing the police administration of a cover up in the investigations into the alleged discovery of arms at the party’s headquarters in 2015.

The NPP’s Director of Communication, Nana Akomea, said it is worrying that six months after the incident, the police have still not concluded on the matter.

About four AK-47 rifles and four machetes in a sack were alleged to have been retrieved by police personnel following a tip-off by some retired military men on November 22, 2015 at exactly 1am.

The men claimed they were in the NPP headquarters at Asylum Down to “take over.”

According to reports, the retired soldiers, 50 in number, locked the security men on duty at the party’s office. They were later rounded up by the police whilst the rest fled.

Out of the alleged 50 men who stormed the NPP office, only 11 of them were arraigned before the Accra Circuit Court on November 25, 2015 and charged with unlawful entry, unlawful purpose on private premises and causing unlawful damage to the tune of GH¢28,000.

But the NPP has insisted the state security apparatus brought in those arms to implicate the party’s security personnel, The Invincible Forces.

Nana Akomea said investigations into the matter should have been what he described as an “open and shut case.”

He asserted that the continuing investigation by the police deepens the perception of the leadership of the party that there is an attempt to cover up.

“You have somebody who has also said that he is behind the organisation. He procured the military uniforms and got the ex-service men to participate in this matter,” he bemoaned.

He reiterated the position of the NPP that “the guns or ammunitions had been brought from outside and planted because the two or three security people at the head office were put in a room and locked.”

However, the Director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), COP Prosper Ablorh, said considering the nature of the case, it is difficult for the police to quickly conclude with its investigations as the NPP wants.

He noted that “investigations take a long time to carry out, especially when the arms were not discovered in the possession of somebody.”

Moreover, he said, the arms are neither registered nor allowed in the country. “They are also not the guns license dealers deal with,” he added.

He called on the leadership of the NPP to bear with the police as they do their best to bring the perpetrators to justice.

-the Finder