Five Nigeriens have appeared before the Kaneshie District Court for allegedly attempting to register in the ongoing voter registration exercise.
They are Mahamadu Iddrisa, Ibrahim Inusah, Issackah Bulka, Abdul Aziz and Abdulai Alhassan.
Adamu Osman, their accomplice, however could not make it to court because Baba Jamal, their counsel, told the Court that he was indisposed.
Some of their accomplices were on the run.
Meanwhile, the Court presided over Eleanor Kakra Barnes-Botchway had ordered for the issuance of a medical report from a certified medical doctor to that effect.
The six were supposed to appear before the Court on Tuesday, July 28, but their lawyer said they could not locate the Court and later they took Osman, who fell ill, to the hospital.
When they again came to court on Thursday, July 30, their plea was not taken because Baba Jamal told the Court that his clients could only understand the Zabrama language.
The Court then charged the registrar to write to arrange for an interpreter for August 13, the next adjourned date.
The Court therefore granted a GHC20,000 bail with two sureties each, to the accused persons.
In praying for bail, counsel said the accused persons had been on police enquiry bail since their arrest on July 23, adding that they came to the Court voluntarily and that was enough to show that they would be available in court when granted bail.
Sergeant Apaweh Archana, Prosecuting, told the Court that the complainants; George Quaye was a New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Registration Agent, Nana Oti Akenteng was a NPP Organiser and George Barfi also an NPP Operation Team member, all of Okaikoi South constituency.
The accused persons were Nigeriens residing at Bubuashie and the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Area and on July 23, 2020, at about 9am, the complainants whilst on their various assignments in the Constituency, picked information that someone had bused a group of foreigners to the Constituency to register.
The complainants spotted the accused at the Cripple Home Registration Centre in a queue in an attempt to register as Ghanaian registered voters.
Sergeant Achana said they were questioned but they could not tell which part of Ghana they hailed from neither could they speak any Ghanaian language fluently.
He said they were then asked to leave but the complainants later had information that the accused had moved to the Winston Salem Registration Centre nearby and joined the queue again to register.
Prosecution said the complainants went to the Centre and caused their arrest but the others managed to escape.
They were handed over to the Police for investigation and it was revealed that all the six were Nigeriens living at Circle and Odorna Area and its environs.
In their cautioned statements, they confirmed their nationality, saying, they had lived in Ghana for about three years, adding that on July 23, an unidentified man picked them and organized them to register and they obliged.
Sergeant Achana said they had been charged for attempting to register as a voter contrary to Section 24 (a) of C.I. 12, Elections Regulation 1995.
