Lawyer Issifu Mahmoud, the parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Binduri constituency in the Upper East Region has condemned the near-fatal attack on the party’s constituency chairman, Martin Ariku.
On Saturday 26th August 2023, a group of assailants attacked the residence of the Binduri constituency chairman at Bazua. The attackers, numbering over 4, went into the residence of the party’s chairman and opened fire around 12: 46 a.m. on Saturday.
The gunshots, according to sources, lasted for close to 30 minutes before the community members overpowered the attackers in defence of the party Chairman. In the process, 3 of the suspected assailants were killed while the others escaped. The bodies of the 3 were later handed over to the police for further investigation.
It is against this incident that the parliamentary candidate of the NDC on behalf of the party condemned the barbaric attack on its chairman and called for a thorough investigation to bring the perpetrators to book. A statement that was copied to A1 Radio, said members of the community are alarmed by the “high incidence of insecurity and organised crime in the Binduri Constituency”
“If the situation is not brought under control, it could spread to other parts of the constituency. It is reported that criminals would, in advance, issue out anonymous threats via social media to their victims before viciously attacking them and, in some cases, killing them. It was in this fashion that the Constituency Chaiman’s residence was attacked by gunmen in the Bazua township on the 26th of August 2023 leading to the death of some people in the attack.”
While commending the police service and other security services, the party entreated the security services to step up their role to ensure that the lives and property of the residents are well protected.
“The arrest of the suspects is often a belated and reactive response. There is no doubt that the attacks and subsequent loss of lives could have been preempted by the security apparatus if there was numerical strength and resources at their disposal to fight crime in the District”, the statement added.
The legal practitioner in his statement was worried that even though the Constitution (1992) of the Republic of Ghana enshrines the state to protect its citizenry, “the same is yet to be seen by the people of the BInduri District”.
“We, therefore, call upon all the security agencies tasked with fighting crime to increase cooperation and information sharing between, and or among the general public. We assert that the police and other security agencies involved in the fight against crime in the District discharge their duties professionally to gather as well as extract information from suspects without unnecessarily violating their human rights by inflicting bodily harm and destruction of property.”
Lawyer Mahmoud in the statement also called on the residents to be vigilant, security-conscious and cooperate with security agencies to fight insecurity in the District. The party also appealed to the government to consider strengthening the number of security personnel with the necessary logistics to be visible in every part of the District.
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah|Ghana
