The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has suspended its Ayawaso North constituency chairman, Ahmed Tahiru.
The suspension follows a claim that Tahiru reported to the police that the NDC National Vice Chairman, Alhaji Said Sinare, has supplied guns to some youth to cause mayhem in the upcoming December 7 polls.
Tahiru, according to his lawyer, Mr Theoplilus Donkor found two guns in an NDC vehicle he had picked last Sunday for party activities.
He however found the guns in the vehicle the following morning on Monday and reported the matter to the police and handed over the two guns, an AK-47 and a pump action gun.
The Accra Region Police command has begun investigations into the matter and has since invited Alhaji Sinare to assist with investigations.
Alhaji Sinare has admitted ownership of the pump action gun which he claims was missing and had been reported to the Cantonments Police Station about a month ago but denied owning the AK-47 assault rifle.
But, this action taken by the NDC Ayawaso North chairman, according to the party, is a breach of Article 46 (8) of the party’s constitution.
The party thinks that, he should have reported the incident to the party for internal mechanisms to have been used to resolve it than running to the police.
Why the NDC suspended him?
Explaining why Tahiru was suspended, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the NDC, Mr Ade Coker explained that the indefinite suspension was because Tahiru failed to follow laid down rules for getting issues resolved in the party.
“We have structures in the party, if you have any grievances there is a way you go about it in the party, you report officially to the party and the party will investigate. But where we have a constituency chairman taking a whole national vice chairman to the police station without recourse to party intervention, we feel he’s gone too far, and we need to set him aside so that we can investigate the issue and then the right things would be done,” Mr Coker said in a radio interview with Accra based Citi FM on Thursday evening monitored by Graphic Online.
He said it was “a very serious matter” and that the steps taken with respect to the suspension was the right way to go and that it would be forwarded to the National Executive for further action.
“He went to the police station, submitted some guns claiming that our national vice chairman had given those guns to go and perform certain action. We have investigated it and we deem it that we need to step him aside and investigate further and that is what we’ve done, we’ve taken the first step to investigate as a party,” Mr Coker said.
Mr Coker said Tahiru should go to the National Executive and make any submissions that he has there.
We are dealing with a crime case not politics – lawyer
Meanwhile the lawyer of Tahiru, Mr Theophilus Donkor in a radio interview with Citi FM has said that Tahiru only told the police that he found those weapons in a party vehicle, which he had been using but had been parked at Santeo since 2016.
He said the vehicle had not been broken into and that he had the key with him.
Defending why Tahiru chose to report the matter to the police, Mr Donkor said, “possession of firearms without authority or to use the word license to handle weapon is a criminal offence under our law and it is a first degree felony if you are charged under Section 192 of Act 29, so if a citizen finds a gun in a car that has been parked for almost 4 years and he says that I’m giving it to the police, because at that time, he doesn’t know who owns that gun, so the best thing to have done, which he did was to hand over the guns to the police.”
The lawyer said he has been told that the car was parked somewhere around Santeo and that it was parked there after the 2016 elections.
Asked about whose house the car had been parked, Mr Donkor said he doesn’t have instructions to speak on that.
He said elections are heating up and as a constituency chairman, Tahiru needed to use that car and so when the car had not been broken into and he had the key, “he was so suspicious and the only person he can run to for protection is to the police, so that the police can conduct investigations and come to a conclusion that this is the owner of the gun or the gun should not get into the hands of other people who can commit further crimes with it.”
He said the vehicle in which the guns were found were part of the pool of cars that belong to the NDC “but this one (vehicle) they don’t use it regularly and as elections were heating up, he [Tahiru] felt that he could pick that car, because he had previously used that car during the 2016 elections.
Clarifying the relationship between Tahiru and Alhaji Said Sinare and the allegation that the guns belonged to Sinare, Mr Donkor said:
“I don’t know where that narrative is coming from that he has mentioned the name of Alhaji Sinare because as far as I know, the only relationship he had had with Alhaji Sinare is that he has worked closely with him so many years, he has been his driver, graduated to become a special assistant to Alhaji Sinare…, as far as I know, there are misunderstandings between them which is part of the facts that was presented to court today.
Writer’s email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh
Source: graphic.com.gh
