Tamale: Electoral officials chased away from registration centre

Phase two of the voter registration exercise in Tamale has faced chaos as some electoral Commission officials at the Kumbungu lorry station registration centre at Aboabo in Tamale were on Monday chased away by supporters of the two main political parties

over allegations that outsiders will take part in the exercise. The two political parties, NDC and NPP have been at loggerheads since Friday over the citing of the registration centre, with the NDC claiming aliens will get the opportunity to register their names since it’s a lorry

station. The officers got to the center at about 7am, Monday morning to set up their equipment to carry out the exercise when supporters from the two parties stormed there to stop the process. The Tamale Metro Director of EC, Bismark Nteh indicated that, his officers

at the center had to run for their lives “since the centre was on fire”. According to him, he has engaged leadership of the two parties over the matter since last Friday yet have still not gotten a solution to it. He said “they gave so many flimsy excuses, we met the party people and they said they will go and meet their people

and discuss it. One party said the center should be moved, the other party said it should not be moved and some say it should be moved about 20 meters away from where it is, twenty meters and this what's the difference”? “My officers are here in the office, they have returned because they themselves said until they call them to come they shouldn’t come because they don’t know what will happen if they come there” Mr Nteh

added. Bismark Nteh, however, said that they would be compelled to use security to operate at the centre if the two parties failed to reach a reasonable conclusion. He also indicated that, they will follow the calendar as scheduled and would not add any day to that reg center. Residents in that area have missed out one day of the registration as EC officers were not allowed to work on Monday.