The police have interrogated four Ashanti Regional executives of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for allegedly wearing military camouflage during the recent internal campaign tour of the region by former President John Mahama.
They are Captain Kwame Jabari (rtd), First Vice Chairman, Baah Achamfour, Deputy Secretary, Seth Atanga, Deputy Youth Organiser, and Marvin Philip Frazer Norman, Treasurer. Caution statements were reportedly taken from them but the direction of the case has not been made public by the police.
Addressing the media after honouring the police invitation, Captain Kwame Jabari (rtd) disclosed that about a week ago, former President John Dramani Mahama visited the region, and during the visit, some of the Ashanti Regional NDC executives were dressed in military camouflage.
According to Kwame Jabari Jabari, because of the military attire he wore that day, the Regional Police Commander called him through his Staff Officer that he wanted to have an interaction with him.
He continued that when he reported at the Command, the Regional Commander showed him a picture in which he and his colleague NDC executives were wearing military uniforms, but he denied any wrongdoing.
According to him, he was subsequently asked to write his cautioned statement, which he did, and when he was leaving the office, the Commander asked him to inform his other colleagues who were in the camouflage uniform to also report to the Command, but they had a problem with the invitation, so they did not honour it.
To them, if the police want to invite regional executives of a party, there was a procedure that must be followed.
The Ashanti Regional First Vice Chairman revealed that two days ago, the Regional Crime Officer personally came to their Regional Office to invite them, hence, they had to show up.
He said: “I know it is politics that they are doing, but I must remind them that when I was in [the] Service, I dropped the uniforms before I came into politics, so if the police and military are doing this, I honourably urge them to drop the uniform and come to do politics. They say they are going to find out from the military if what we donned were military uniforms.”
Asked what led them to wear military camouflage, Captain Jabiril argued that it was a dress and “I decided to wear it because I am sure you are wearing dress today.”
When he was again asked by the journalists if any of his colleagues would continue to wear the uniform, Jabiri responded in the affirmative, assuring the media that: “We will continue to wear it until a competent court says that ‘Ashanti Regional officers you cannot wear it’.”
“It must not be that because NDC are wearing it; they must be invited. If [an] NPP person is wearing it, he must be invited. If Captain Smart is wearing it, he must be invited; If Stone Bwoy is wearing it in a military compound in Burma Camp, he must be invited.”
