Police in the Volta Region on Saturday Morning prevented members of a pro New Patriotic Party (NPP) group from holding a peaceful health walk at Ho, although they met the requirements of the Public Order Act.
The health walk dubbed March for Change, was spearheaded by the group, ‘Volta For Change’.
Citi News’ King Norbert Akpablie quoted the police as saying that they took the decision based on an ‘order from above’ although the police had been duly notified of the exercise. Akpablie reported that over thirty police officers from a SWOT team were deployed to ensure that the new illegal directive ‘from above’ is enforced.
The President of the group, Eyram Doe wondered why they had been prevented from going ahead with the event when they had duly notified the police who had no problem with it.
“We asked permission, we wrote letters to the Police to inform them that we will be having this programme but we arrived here and the Commander of Operations in the region came to tell us that we cannot have the programme. We asked them to give us tangible reasons why we cannot hold this programme but they could not.” Meanwhile after a holdup for several hours, the police finally allowed the team to go ahead with the peaceful health walk.
This health walk comes barely a month after an NDC youth group held a similar one at Hohoe in the Volta Region.
The health walk was also used to campaign for President Mahama ahead of the November polls, in the party’s stronghold region.
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