The coffin had a piece of red cloth, eggs and a dead fowl placed on top of it.

Some residents who expressed shock at the development and said persons behind the act could be protesting the EC’s resolve to  conduct the District Assembly Elections in the area.

Some residents and aspiring assembly members have expressed dissatisfaction over the delay in holding the election and have been calling on authorities to intervene to enable the area to have a functional assembly.

But speaking to Citi News, Regional Director of the EC, George Gyabaa said the scheduled elections will be conducted on Tuesday [11th April, 2017] as all the necessary materials have been dispatched to the communities and appealed to residents and aspiring candidates to conduct themselves peacefully during the polls to enable the two assemblies to have representatives to stir the affairs of the assembly for development.

“District Level Elections is electoral area and district specific. All their development projects have stale because they do not have an assembly, so it’s incumbent for them to elect assembly members so they can form the assemblies to facilitate development” he pleaded.

The Regional EC Boss added that his outfit had also given training to its officers in readiness to execute their mandate and have the assurance that the process will be smooth.

Both the Nkoranza North and South do not have functional assemblies following the resident’s failure to participate in the elections conducted by the EC last year in protest against the DKM and other micro-finance scams that rocked the area.

They invoked curses and banned all political activities in the area to compel authorities to compel the companies who defrauded them to refund their investments.

The presence of the coffin at the EC office comes days after a purification exercise led by fetish priest, Nana Kwabena Nyarko and some youth to reverse the curse that was invoked on the Municipal Electoral Commission (EC), compelling it to suspend the District Level Assembly Election in Nkoranza North and South Districts.

The EC has set 11th April, 2017 for the conduct of the elections.

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By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Victor Mlotshwa was speaking outside court in the north-eastern town of Middelburg where his alleged attackers appeared before a magistrate.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” he said.

A 20-second video of the incident has been circulating on social media, causing outrage.

The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Middelburg says inside the magistrates’ court, the two accused, Theo Martins Jackson and Willem Oosthuizen, stood with their heads bowed as journalists and community members took photographs of them.

They have been charged with kidnapping and assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The two have been remanded in custody until 25 January as prosecutors said they needed time to investigate, including authenticating the video.

The footage, which was shot on 17 August, has only recently surfaced.

It shows a white man forcing a black man inside a coffin, and threatening to pour petrol over him and set it alight.

Mr Mlotshwa told reporters that he had been walking home through the men’s farm, which is near Middelburg, 162km (100 miles) north-east of Johannesburg, when he was kidnapped and accused of trespassing.

“There’s a pathway through the farm to the township where I live and many of us walk through there. I tried to explain to them why I was there and they just kept beating me,” he said.

Mr Mlotshwa only reported the matter after the video was circulated on social media.

He said he felt humiliated by the incident.

Outside the court, members of the governing African National Congress (ANC), the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) rallied in support of Mr Mlotshwa, our reporter says.

The incident has opened old wounds, with some likening it to the torture black people endured at the height of white minority rule, she says.

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Source: BBC

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