Youth belonging to two opposing factions within the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) at Bongo in the Upper East Region clashed in violent scenes on Saturday June 4, 2016.
The violence erupted after the disruption of a press conference by one group calling itself Lailai, which wanted to express its opposition to the parliamentary candidature of Mr Edward Bawa for the constituency.
The group had intended to use the occasion to spell out reasons for its opposition to the choice of the former consultant for the Energy Ministry as candidate.
Reporter Edward Adeti, who spoke with Chief Jerry Forson on Monday June 6 on Ghana Yensom, Accra100.5FM’s morning show, said the Lailai group had previously accused Mr Bawa of padding the NDC’s electoral register for Bongo with the names of persons who did not qualify to be delegates, giving him an unfair advantage in the primary held in November 2015.
They had also alleged that Mr Bawa had not been involved in any of the political activities of the party in the area until he mobilised enough funds recently to contest as MP, hence, could not be seen as a dedicated member of the party, for which reason they referred to him as a “latter-day saint”.
The group also accused Mr Bawa of sowing discord among party members in Bongo, a case in point being his decision to distribute solar lanterns he had obtained from the Energy Ministry to only a select few members of the NDC.
Lailai had threatened a ‘skirt and blouse’ vote in Bongo – an arrangement that involves party supporters voting for their presidential candidates but for an aspirant from a different party in the legislative ballot – in order to spite Mr Bawa, if their calls to have him replaced were not heeded.
According to the reporter, the programme had barely begun when a pro-Bawa group emerged to scuttle it. He said journalists covering the event were also assaulted.
However, the police intervened to calm the situation before it could degenerate.
