Hopeson Adorye has reportedly been arrested by the Police over his claim that he detonated dynamites in the Volta Region during the 2016 General Elections.
The arrest follows an interview he gave in Accra, where he claimed to have been part of an orchestration to detonate dynamites to scare voters in the stronghold of the National Democratic Congress to pave the way for a New Patriotic Party (NPP) win.
Hopeson Adorye who is now a leading member of Alan Kyerematen's Movement for Change indicated that the operation he led, which involved the use of explosives, all happened within the borders of Togo, not Ghana.
He said that he constituted a team and took them to Togo to engage the traditional authorities of communities bordering Ghana, to urge them to speak to their people so they would not cross the border to vote in the 2016 elections.
“There is this issue in the Volta Region during elections that Togolese came and registered to vote. In 2016, they came to register alright, but I took it upon myself to disable the system so that they would not come and vote.
“I chose a team and made them swear an oath that they were not going to inform the regional executives of what we were going to do,” he narrated.
He added, “We had a relation who grew up there (Togo) and he had a good relationship with the traditional authorities there. So, he moved us from one authority to the other so we could engage them. When we met them, we gave them a lot of money (CFA) for them to use for advocacy, radio announcements and the like.”
He insisted that everything, including the explosion, happened in Togo and not the Volta Region as some people are asserting.
“I told them that things were going to happen so they should not come… Because of what we told them, we put things in order. Everything that happened took place in Togo. Those saying it happened in the Volta Region, if you throw this (dynamite) at a polling station, won't people die? Who in the Volta Region can say that there was an explosion in his or her area?
“And I gated the people. After it (the explosion), I made them take off on the motorbikes. There was a commotion, and the people started saying that what we told them had started happening. It was a strategy. Everything happened in Togo,” he reiterated
Meanwhile, a member of the Movement for Change, and former Member of Parliament for the Adentan constituency Buaben Asamoa believes that Adorye’s arrest is politically motivated, stating that the police are waiting for instructions from above, implying that the arrest is not solely a police decision.
He also believes that Adorye’s arrest is an attempt to muscle the Movement for Change and silence Adorye, who has been vocal about his opinions.
“Because if Hopson has been up and running and there are people who are feeling a little edgy and Jiffy about some of the things he has been saying. And this is the way of muscling him, trying to frighten the movement for change, it won’t work. I believe strongly that it’s politically motivated.”
Mr. Adorye is currently in custody and is expected to appear in court on Thursday. He has not been charged with a crime yet, but the police are investigating a case of publication of false information.