A self-styled Prophet, Kwabena Owusu Agyei, who was arrested by the National Security for threatening President Akufo-Addo and the electoral commission chairperson Jean Mensah allegedly had Indian hemp popularly known as ‘weed’ in his possession.
Viral videos circulating on Social Media minutes after his arrest revealed that the 56-year-old “man of God” had in his possession, quantities of ‘Indian Hemp’ (weed) when he was picked up at his residence near the Greda Estates on the Spintex Road in Accra Tuesday.
The preacher was reportedly arrested by plain cloth security men during a live interview with Accra-based Hot FM Tuesday morning.
The preacher in the said video which went viral on social media on Monday was heard raining curses on the EC chair over plans to compile a new voter’s register.
He is currently being processed for court.
Meanwhile, The Electoral Commission (EC) has stated that the underlying legal reasons for its decision not to include the existing voter’s Identification Card (ID) in its upcoming registration exercise is because the Supreme Court itself has held that the register is reasonably not credible and that by implication, the cards issued pursuant to it are also reasonably not credible.
The EC made this accession in its thirty-one (31) page response to the order of a seven member Supreme Court panel on the 4th of June 2020, to provide legal basis for its decision to exclude the existing voter’s identity card from the list of IDs that are admissible for the upcoming voters registration exercise due to commence at the end of the month of June. The EC’s Supplementary Statement of Case was filed today Monday, the 8th of June 2020 in fulfillment of the timelines given by the Supreme Court.
Summary of EC Argument
“In summary, the following are the legal reasons why the 2nd Defendant (EC) is not allowing the existing voter identification cards to be used in the upcoming voter registration exercise” . 1. “The existing voter register which was compiled in 2012 pursuant to CI 72 and revised since by limited registration exercises has been held by this Honourable Court as not being reasonably credible. By implication, the cards issued pursuant to it are also not reasonably credible” the document entitled “Supplementary Statement of case of the 2nd Defendant pursuant to the orders of the Court dated 4th June 2020” said.
The supplementary statement filed by lawyer for the EC, Justin Amenuvor, further stated that, 2. “In respect of the cards issued pursuant to ci 12, the 2nd Defendant (EC) has found that those voter identification cards were issued without any form of identification at all and its ineligibilities, breaches and excesses were imported into the 2012 register pursuant to CI 72 in breach of Article 42 and displacing the credibility of the CI 12 cards”.
The third point of the EC is that “it found a fundamental omission in its training manual and the manner in which the voter registration exercise was carried out in 2012 partly in breach of its own binding CI 72 and also in breach of Article 42 of the constitution” . the fourth point is that “the 2nd Defendant wants a break from the past to remedy all the carried on ineligibilities, excesses and breaches of Article 42 as the existing cards have become fruits of a “poisoned tree”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
