NPP in tango with Police over demonstration route

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Source: myjoyonline.com  / 17.02.2015  -  

Opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are in a tango with the Police over the approval of a route for a demonstration promised by the NPP to send shivers down Government's spine.

The NPP is accusing the Police of showing bad faith by going to court behind their backs to try and obtain an injunction against the demonstration, even though the two parties had agreed to the routes.

This is an accusation the Police have “emphatically” denied. Accra Police PRO ASP Afia Tenge told Joy News, the NPP had wanted to change the route after the police had agreed to the one the NPP had originally asked for.

In effect, the police went to court to get a decision that would bind the NPP to the route the two had initially agreed.

The original route had protesters intending to converge at Obra Spot, march Farisco, on to TUC and Kwame Nkrumah Masoleum and finally, to the Hearts of Oak park.

However the Police claim the NPP came back to ask to use Rawlings park and then to Bank of Ghana. According to Accra Police PRO, ASP Afia Tenge this change was unacceptable because the Bank of Ghana and environs are security zones. Businesses in that area, could be disrupted, she fears.

She read court judgments restricting the intended demonstration to abide by the initial route.

Meanwhile the NPP National Organiser John Boadu insists that the NPP never asked to alter the route.

“We didn’t ask them for any change. There was no request. There was no bone of contention at all.”

The NPP demonstration christened ‘We are dying’ is to dramatise Ghanaian's frustration with an ever-erratic power supply which has entered its third year.

NPP General Secretary said, “several thousands of people [will turn up] in the streets of Accra tomorrow”. He revealed that enthusiasm for the demonstration was nationwide and so high, he has had to stop foot soldiers from Kumasi in the Ashanti region; the stronghold of the party.

Officials in the party have said their 2016 flagbearer Nana Akufo Addo will participate in the demonstration which starts at 8:30am Wednesday.