The NPP in the run-up to the 2016 elections felt they could not trust the electoral commission and the state.s security to be objective and professionals in the execution of their duties and so decided to assemble and train strong men to protect their interest.
To the NPP, the only way the elections was going to be lost was through rigging and that was what they were up against. Experts were brought from abroad to train these guys to take the place of the security for the NPP. I am one person who believes 2016 elections was peaceful because the opposition won.
In Ghana, the only time an election is free and fair is when the opposition wins.
NPP comes to power, the EC Chair they didn’t really like was pushed aside and it was at this point I expected to see our president show real leadership. Every informed Ghanaian knows that the manner in which the EC chair gets appointed is problematic and hence the need for change.
But Nana decided to repeat the error in our constitution, appoint an EC Chair he most definitely is comfortable with and put her in the very position of distrust the one he sacked was in.
Today, NDC views Mrs. Jane Mensah the same way the NPP viewed Mrs. Charlotte Osei and hence her removal.
By failing to bring a replacement by consensus, Nana has succeeded in also giving the NDC an excuse to distrust the new chair and hence start resorting to same measures in a bid to secure their ballot.
Fast forward: when power was won, the young men appointed to protect ballot decided to make their presence felt because signs were that they’d be forgotten. They attacked a security coordinator, attacked the judge presiding over that very case. They seized toilet, toll booth, a tourist site yet walked free.
The government then decided to place some of them in various government agencies, some as guards to the president himself and his appointees.
In the national security, you have them as party boys and so no one can touch them, their government is in power. Some have been recruited into the police, army, immigration and more.
Now, this is where we are going to have a problem. The NDC has made it clear that they don’t like the current EC boss, they have replayed all the allegations the NPP used against Mrs. Charlotte Osei (except the sex for job part). They also don’t trust the current handlers of our security and as a result, officially out-doored the hawks.
Additionally, they are going to set up a ballot protection unit if we are to trust the words of their chairman.
Fast forward, 2020 elections, the NDC Hawks and Ballot Protection Unit are very likely to clash with the various forces and a part of the defaced National Security.
Our security, I mean the professionally trained will be rendered useless in the face of it all and the biggest casualty is going to be Ghana.
Fast forward, NDC wins, even if not 2020, they will sack all the guys appointed as security and replace them with their hawks. Thousands of young men with expertise in gun usage will be thrown into the street. The party will try to contain them but in opposition, it’s not easy.
That is an increase in crime rate staring at us, a rebel group in the making. When the stakes of politics are so high that loss of power can render machomen jobless, then we are in for a painful ride.
In 2008, Ghana was on the brink, if such forces existed at the time, we wouldn’t be celebrating our election success today, if we get close to 2008 again, it’d be difficult to recover.
Ayawaso Wuogon is telling us something, we cannot turn deaf ear to it, the sound is too loud for us to pretend that we aren’t hearing it.
There are so many irresponsible people with guns, what they know is violence. The institutionalization of these vigilante groups by our major political parties is a sign of worst to come, unfortunately, state actors don’t seem to notice it or even if they do, don’t care.
Our only hope is the citizen, the biggest victim of all these, we have to start making noise and let them know our displeasure. In 2017, one of the reasons 20 people perished at the Kintampo Water Falls was because party thugs had taken over the tourist site. With expert tour guards around, they’d have warned the tourists and stopped them from using the facility while it was raining.
You see, we the ordinary Ghanaians suffer the most when the ‘extraordinary’ Ghanaians don’t apply wisdom.
As it stands, Nana Addo can only condemn a problem he is to a large extent responsible for and better placed than any to solve while Mahama tries to win the battle of who is the more violent of the two blood-thirsty parties.
All they require of you is silence.
Let’s disappoint them
Isaac Kyei Andoh