The Northern Regional Security Council says it has intelligence that political parties in the region are planning an arms onslaught after the Moslem fasting period of Ramadan and thus render the area ungovernable.

Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Regional Minister, says supporters of various political parties are amassing weapons waiting for the end of the month-long Ramadan to start the conflict.

The Minister with journalists and members of the regional security council, has been touring the Gushiegu area where clashes between the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress followers since Sunday have left three people dead and property, including homes and vehicles running into several millions of Ghana cedis destroyed.

Other sources have put the death toll at six.

Joy News correspondent, Sampson Lardi Ayenini, who is part of the team of journalists on the tour, said the Regional Minister has been meeting representatives of the various parties and lumped them up as collectively responsible for the potentially dangerous situation.

Representatives of the Convention People’s Party and the Democratic Freedom Party, who expressed joy at the open discussion of the volatile situation, however disassociated their respective parties from the situation and laid the blame squarely on the NPP and NDC.

The Minister said his car had been a target of a shooting incident.

The NPP and NDC representatives said those responsible for the shooting were known persons walking the streets freely and wondered why the police were not arresting them. They called for the immediate arrest of all perpetrators to send strong signals to would-be law breakers that they would not have their way.

The Minister said a special task force is to be set-up to conduct unannounced arms searches in homes to help retrieve arms in the wrong hands, expressing the fear that the situation could have been worse but for the period of fasting. There has also be cases of party followers procuring petrol for ostensibly to burn down homes and properties of opponents in reprisals and what saved the situation last night were heavy rains that lasted the entire night.



Story by Isaac Yeboah