Saltpond (C/R), Oct. 09, GNA – Mr Ekow Quansah Hayford, Member of Parliament (MP) for the Mfantseman constituency has been shot dead by some unidentified gunmen in the early hours of Friday.
The MP together with his campaign team were returning from a campaign trip when the incident happened, on the Mankessim Abeadze Dominase road around 0100 hours.
Confirming the incident to the media, the Mfantseman first Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), popularly known as Wofa Yaw who was in the company of the late MP at the time of the incident said the driver who also received gun-shot wounds and was sent for treatment at Saltpond Hospital, has been referred to the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
According to the constituency Vice Chairman, upon reaching a section of the road at Abeadze Dominase some unidentified men wielding guns suspected to be pomp action and AK47 had clandestinely blocked the road and ordered them out of the car and consequently shot the tyre of the vehicle as well as the driver and the MP.
“On reaching a section of the road, we saw two cargo cars packed in the middle of the road with people sleeping under it, so we thought it was an accident and slowed down to assist only to be attacked by the unknown assailants.”
Sensing that they could be armed robbers, he said they made the move to return, but the robbers begun firing at them and shot the hand of the driver and thus could not drive.
He said some of the bullets hit the MP leading to his death.
As at 0630 hours when the Ghana News Agency visited the MP’s residence at Mankessim, scores of grieving family members, Party sympathizers, faithful and friends thronged the place.
Some residents suspected foul play called on the police to scale up investigations to arrest the killers to face the full rigours of the law.
“We will not vote for any other candidate because we suspect his death was not ordinary. It is only the Presidential we will vote for,” they said.
The late MP filed his nomination on Thursday to seek re-election in the upcoming 2020 general election.
Married with four children, and a Christian, the late MP who hails from Mankessim was born on December 24,1970.
With varied Professions, the MP holds an MBA in Supply Chain Management from GIMPA in 2016 and was the Managing Director of Modisa Lodge at Mankessim.
GNA