Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo Prampram constituency, Hon Sam George has said the National Security personnel he met during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence, Bright Ernest Akomeah, popularly known as Double, was coached on what to say before testifying before the Emile Short Commission on Tuesday.

Mr. Akomeah who appeared before the Emile Short Commission on Tuesday said he protected the Ningo-Prampram MP during the violent scuffle.

He also claimed he helped Sam George’s entourage to use the VIP lounge at the Kotoka International Airport.

But the MP in an interview on Eyewitness News denied these claims, alleging that Mr. Akomeah’s version of events was full of inconsistencies.

“It is shocking that an individual can contrive lies in a way that I witnessed on Tuesday. Before telling these lies ‘Double’ had established to the commission and anybody who was fair-minded that he was not a credible witness. An illiterate national security officer, who is in charge of the VIP Longue would not be my go-to person to use at the VIP lounge when it is a privilege I enjoy as Member of Parliament. I am putting on record that double was coached to come and give his testimony,” he said.

Sam George who was assaulted by some of the armed masked men deployed by the National Security Council to provide security at the by-election had named Double as one of the men who fired warning shots into the crowd.

Testifying before the Short Commission, Mr. Akomeah also said he had been working with the national security for two years after a three-week training.

“I work as a national security operative. And I have been doing that for almost two years. Prior to working with the National Security, I was selling mobile phones at Kwame Nkrumah Circle,” Double said.

He said before his recruitment; he was a mobile phone dealer at Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra.

Asked by Counsel to the Commission, Eric Osei Mensah how he was recruited into the National Security Council, Bright Ernest Akomea told the Commission that “in 2017, I heard that National Security was recruiting, and I applied. I went in with my application… I went for vetting, and they took my fingerprint.”

‘I was an NPP polling station chairman.’

Double, who had listed names of persons he claims he saw among the agitated mob around the NDC’s Ayawaso West Wuogon parliamentary candidate’s house struggled to explain how he knew that the said individuals were private security persons of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In answering questions by Prof. Henrietta Mensa Bonsu, Double told the Commission that he had encountered the persons he listed at NDC events while serving as a polling station chairman for the New Patriotic Party.