National Security Director links NDC "Hawks" to violence at Ayawaso by-election

General News of Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2019-02-20

The director of operations at National Security blames a militia affiliated with the main opposition party for acts of violence that marred the partial election of Ayawaso West Wuogon in Accra.

Colonel Michael Opoku said that one of the men arrested by the police was a known member of the Hawks, a militia linked to the Democratic National Congress.

"When you search for information about Hawks on Google, you will see it … I am told that he is the president of the Hawks organization," he told the Commission 's. investigation of violence.

The controversial claim adds a new twist to what happened on January 31, 2016 after violence at a polling station in La Bawaleshie left at least 15 people injured, some of them by gunshot.

According to the account of the National Security Director, masked members as well as a SWAT team stormed the house of the NDC parliamentary candidate suspecting illegal possession and use of weapons.

Colonel Opoku said the shots were first fired from that house while the SWAT team had met a hostile crowd gathering around the house.

The security team abandoned the premises after arresting nine suspects in front of the house and aborted the mission without confirming the presence of weapons.

But the counter-current in the media has been that a pro-government militia, Invincible Forces infamous for creating insecurity, has caused chaos under the guise of being national security agents.

The government was severely convicted for overseeing growing insecurity and inciting its militias to cause public unrest.

The colonel however revealed that the Hawks, a pro-NDC militia, had left Tamale to go to Accra, in the region of Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti region.

The director stated that they had information on the movement of weapons in the constituency before the by-elections.

The Hawks over the past 48 hours have also been linked to a tragic shootout at the headquarters of the Ashanti region of the opposition NDC in Kumasi.

As public attention shifted from NPP militias to NDC militias, the colonel said, the Hawks' propensity for violence was at stake in the Ayawaso West-Wuogon by-election.

The men masked in intimidating security apparatuses who stormed the constituency, he said, were part of measures to badure voters that security was at the rendezvous.

But if national security has called this activity to build confidence, suggested a member of the Commission, the Prof. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, this undermined confidence.