MR PRESIDENT, ENOUGH OF ELECTION YEAR RHETORIC- DISBAND YOUR VIGILANTE GROUPS NOW

Mr President, Ghana is a multicultural nation and unity is essential and fundamental for the success of our dear nation. It is important to translate unity into action and it cannot remain rhetoric. Ghanaians must honesty of your government to embrace unity to promote social cohesion and harmony in the country. It’s long overdue for your government to practice what it preaches and not merely provide lip service. Over the last ten months, several incidence of lawlessness, impunity and acts of discrimination had taken place.

Incidence where your vigilante groups chased out a judge from her court room and vandalised the place, attacked security officers and a regional security coordinator etc. These hoodlums were not chastised after attacking these public officers and vandalised state properties. In fact, it would have been one of great moments of unity if your government could punish these hoodlums and distance itself from these vigilante groups. I heard the President speak extensively on the vigilante menace but I think his government should take the lead and carry out intense initiative to increase social awareness and educate the public especially, his own party members. This will be in order to educate, promote and instil consciousness and eradicate the menace. Serious soul searching is needed for all Ghanaians to unite once again on common trust and respect for all. We should never allow political manoeuvring to further erode the fabric of a united Ghana.

I heard Mr President describe these hoodlums operating under the guise of vigilante groups as criminals and will do everything in his power to stem the tide of political violence by party youth in the country. My problem is with his assertion that he would be walking another path to finding solution to the canker and the impression created as if his predecessor did nothing about the problem. The truth is that, these acts of stupidity began under President Akufo-Addo. Political vigilantism became part of our body politic just after the President’s inauguration. It is the first time in the history of this great country that hoodlums could walk straight into a court room, chase out a judge, free accused persons standing trial, and vandalise the place. It is the first time, hoodlums could courageously attack a security coordinator, attack security officers at the Presidency, lock up district chief executives, set ablaze state properties, warn a sitting president, ransack government offices etc etc, without being arrested. We didn’t see these madness under Mahama, Rawlings, Mills and Kufour. The Attorney General energised these hoodlums to misbehave by helping them to escape prosecution when she filed a nolle prosequi on. With all available evidence furnished the AG’s department, it still filed a nolle prosequi on the case involving the court invasion with the excuse that she did not have the evidence to proceed with the prosecution. The President heard clearly his party’s financier Ken Agyepong issue warning to the national security coordinator Mr Ken Dapaah never to attempt any arrest of these hoodlums and narrated how he organised and financed these groups during the 2016 campaign. The deputy general secretary of the Npp also offered same support to these hoodlums and the party itself stood solidly behind these guys. These hoodlums threaten to expose all secrets about how the Npp won the 2016 and that strong statement, ended the deal and gave the groups the power they needed to execute their agenda. These are the known facts and the President must stop the blame game and the rhetoric and tackle the menace head on. This is not the first time he is assuring Ghanaians of his determination to fight the canker. He made the same statement when he appeared before Otumfuo and repeated same when some men of God raised the alarm. Has he forgotten that it is under the reign that for the first time, the UN issued a formal statement warning Ghana about lawlessness and insecurity in the country.

Mr President must be reminded that these were the paths he chose in opposition

1.Imported mercenaries from South Africa, Uganda and Serbia to train these vigilante groups in how to handle weapons and other fighting equipments

2.Declared all die be die concept into our body politic

3.Financed the vigilante groups and offered them accommodation.

4.Warned Ghanaians that his party will not accept any result apart from victory

5.He looked on when his hoodlums attacked bodyguards of Rawlings in Kumasi

6. He was the leader of his party when a regional chairman of his party was murdered. Was the leader when the young man was murdered in Asewase.

These cruelties and madness never occurred under any of his predecessors and until recent times, alien to our politics.

I don’t think the smoke screen approach will help the President. His spineless and sleazy presidency is accentuating the moral and ethical regression of the Ghanaian society and its propensity lawlessness. Lawlessness and its associated corruption is enervating and suffocating Nigeria Mr President. His party members and appointees are as greedy, opportunistic and prone to corrupt practices as ever which in itself is another sign of insecurity. Even institutions, like the police, the BNI and the judiciary , that should spearhead the war on vigilantism and corruption are lethargic, moribund and unrepentantly weak. President Mahama and other past leaders have demonstrated that leadership can always make a difference. Not surprisingly, Mr Mahama and other leaders lifted Ghana from the pits of despair and hopelessness to the pedestal of hope and renewed optimism, morass of corruption and moral decadence to high standard of probity and decency, quagmire of anarchy and social injustice to a new dawn of rule of law and social justice. These achievements culminated in the gender award you received on behalf of the people of Ghana recently.

I will not walk the path others trod who found it convenient to turn blind eye to the criminal misdeed of their followers” said the President. This statement shouldn’t have come from a President under whose tenure Ghana is experiencing this terrible treatment. Your Predecessor, Mr Mahama, allowed the court to trial the “montie three”. They were fined and incarcerated. The President had all the powers to obstruct proceedings but wisely, allowed the court to operate without unnecessary interruption. Your hoodlums walked into a court, chased out a judge, freed accused persons standing trial, vandalised the place and all you could do was to connive with your AG and other institutions and allowed these hoodlums to escape proper trial. Is that the President’s new path?

Part 1