‘The regional minister told me not even Otumfuo can make me Council of State rep’ – Agric Nzema chief

According to Nana Nkansah Boadu, Dr Frank Amoakohene told him to his face that he was not going to be the Council of State representative for the Ashanti Region and that not even the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, could change his fate.

“The small boy (Dr Frank Amoakohene) who was chosen as a minister told me that it would be over his dead body for me to be elected as a member of the Council of State, and that not even Otumfuo could tell him to do so,” the Agric Nzema chief said in Twi in a viral video clip from a recent interview.

He went on to lambast the regional minister, describing him as a person with no respect for the elderly.

“If he was not properly nurtured, he should go and beat his parents,” he added.

There was chaos at the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, where the Council of State election was held on Tuesday after the voting had ended.

A gang of unknown thugs broke into the polling centre and disrupted the sorting and counting of ballots.

Witnesses said the attackers stormed the venue, knocked over tables, destroyed ballot boxes, and scattered voting papers, forcing EC officials to halt the exercise.

Supporters who were upset with the results allegedly started the violence and demanded a review of the outcome.

Although there was a sizeable number of police personnel at the venue, they struggled to contain the situation as tensions flared, prompting a temporary suspension of the election proceedings.

The violent altercation left several media personnel, including GhanaWeb’s Ashanti Regional Correspondent, Gideon Nana Peprah, injured.

Sharing his ordeal with Etsey Atisu, Peprah said that about seven well-built men stormed the venue without provocation and began assaulting electoral officers.

“Built men from nowhere just stormed the place. They stormed the grounds where the electoral officers were doing the sorting and counting. Suddenly, they started scattering everything — the ballots, the prepared ballot papers, and the tally sheets. Then, at some point, they even started attacking themselves, which left us confused as to what was happening,” he narrated.

According to him, while trying to leave the chaotic scene, the men approached and accused him of filming the incident on his phone and demanded that he delete the footage.

“I was attacked by about seven or eight of them. They claimed they saw me taking videos and ordered me to delete them. Before I could react, they seized my phone and overpowered me,” he added.