OccupyGhana has called for probe of the Special Development Initiatives Minister and Awutu Senya East MP, Mrs Hawa Koomson, for reportedly firing shots at a voters registration centre in her constituency.

Development Diaries gathered that the MP had claimed during a television interview that she fired ‘warning shots’ because ‘there were no police around’.

‘OccupyGhana has had occasion, especially in the wake of the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election, to condemn the use of violence in our electoral politics, whether by government agents or private persons’, OccupyGhana said in a statement.

‘The use of force or violence is a crime under our laws unless there is reasonable justification and within the strict bounds provided by law. Specifically, it is a crime to fire a weapon in a town without a lawful and necessary occasion. Possession of a firearm without lawful excuse is a first-degree felony. And it is also a crime to have an offensive weapon while in a public place, public meeting, or at a public assembly of people, without lawful authority’.

The group also said, ‘In a country governed by the rule of law, you do not prevent an alleged breach of the law by breaching the law yourself. What the Minister did endangered the lives of not only the political actors but innocent people whose only interest in being at the registration centre was ostensibly to exercise their constitutional right to be registered and to vote in the coming elections’.

The group called on the police to quickly investigate the circumstances under which the incident occurred and if it was found that the minister breached the law, she should be prosecuted.

Source: OccupyGhana Graphic Online

Photo source: Hawa Koomson