Two armed men from Bole were arrested on 20 July 2020 and handed over to the Damongo Police for aiding in transporting people to register at Kojokura polling station in the Damongo constituency.

The two, Iddisah Salifu and Atta Abubakari, who were arrested by the military patrol team, had in their possession four guns, amulets, bullets and a number of machetes.

Speaking to the media in Damongo, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the West Gonja Municipal Assembly and Chairman of the Municipal Security Council, Mr Saeed Muazu Jibril, said the two suspects, earlier on 19 July 2020, escorted a team to the Kojokura polling station, who attempted to register but were denied the opportunity, since where they came from is not part of the Damongo constituency.

According to the MCE, the suspects went back but resurfaced on 20 July 2020 and led another group to the registration centre, but were arrested by the military patrol team.

The MCE said it does not matter whether the suspects are supporters of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), insisting that the laws of Ghana will take its course.

The NPP and NDC in the Savanna Region are at loggerheads over the issue.

The NPP accused the NDC of putting into practice the threat to kill people in the ongoing voter registration exercise. The NPP alleged that three buses full of Ivorians and some foreign nationals, who reside in some galamsey areas in the Bole district, were accosted and arrested at a registration centre in Damango and that the buses were accompanied by 15 gun-wielding men in the region.

But the NDC, in a counter-statement signed by the party’s Communication Officer Malik Basintale, said they “will not fall for such wild, evil and contemptible lies and as such, will not waste much time debating already-failed armchair regional party executives that are trying so hard to be seen as working by their superiors in Accra”.

Mr Basintale added that: “Such fake stories are capable of causing serious tension in the region and we call on the security services, particularly the police, to, as a matter of urgency, invite whoever is behind this false accusation, for strict interrogation and hence be used as a scapegoat to deter others who may engage in such despicable acts in the near future”.

Meanwhile, the Assemblyman for the Kabilma Electoral Area of the Bole District in the Savanna Region, Mohammed Abubakari, has debunked assertions that the two men from Kabilma are into politics.

The assemblyman said the two men are part of a “local community security task force” patrolling some galamsey sites in the area, which include places like Camp, Cloff and Tuntumba because of the rampant robbery cases around the place.