NDC CALLS FOR PROBE INTO VIOLENCE A SHAM

Forcing to stay in the media space daily, without being relevant is becoming a feature of the current players who are leading the opposition National Democratic Congress.

After they lost the 2020 presidential election, they had resorted to all sorts of propaganda and mischief to sound and look credible in the estimation of the media, their party, and its membership.

It has been worse, particularly in the case of former President John Dramani Mahama, who was also the presidential candidate of the NDC. And the temptation to lie to the pits of Hell has been his lot, however ridiculous those acts of mischief have been.

Aimless shots

The NDC’s noisemaking in that regard has come from every layer of the party including communicators, national executives, General Mosquito and Sam Ofosu Ampofo as well as organs of the NDC that had been formed overnight just for purposes of noisemaking.

That is why the aggregation of quavers into those discordant notes must annoy every Ghanaian as it has the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei- Mensah- Bonsu.

Intriguingly, those behind that ugly noise on the floors of Parliament include an MP who has a record of winning his seat by infesting Bawku Central over a decade ago with blazing guns. Enter, Mahama Ayariga, the villain, who has been lucky that the scars of his blazing guns effaced with the decision of the then Kufur government to let sleeping dogs lie, though the NPP administration at that time could have pressed for investigations in which the then-candidate could have been implicated and punished.

Incidents

The NDC has also, since the West Ayawaso Wuogon by-election incident of violence, pretended to be more Catholic than the Pope in daubing the incumbent government in murderous colors when it is their party and vigilante actors who have muddied the political terrain as a matter of habit and tradition since 1992.

From Wulensi and Tain through Talensi to Chereponi, the victims had been the NPP rather than the NDC.

Even when it was the NPP that was in power, the record of vigilantes carrying firearms had largely been NDC – with the Azorka Boys being the most ferocious of all vigilante groups known to have been assailing the terrain since 1992.

That is why we agree with the Majority leader when described as hypocritical the filing of a private motion by some Minority Members of Parliament (MPs) to look into the death of some six persons who lost their lives during the 2020 general elections.

Six members of the Minority on March 23, 2021, tabled a private members’ motion in the House seeking a full-scale probe into acts of violence that occurred in the 2020 general elections – with six MPs, namely, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, Muntaka Mubarak, culprit Mahama Ayariga, Alhassan Suhuyini, and James Agalga.

More hypocritical is that they pretend to want “the scope of the probe to factor in inappropriate interferences by state security in the elections and violence against citizens, leading to the loss of lives.”

Objectivity

The lying leadership of the NDC insists that this is in line with a promise made by the IGP and other security agencies as regards a commitment to protect lives.

However, as the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, pointed out, we must – if we indeed intend to set up a probe – widen the scope and look as far back as 1992 through 2000 and 2004 to date.

Unfortunate

Unfortunately in this country, security agencies deliberately putting in place a strategy to chase smoke out suspects who are holding weapons illegally has not been a tradition, allowing for some of these things to inflict us during elections.

With the history of the June 4 and December 31 coup de tat, it is not difficult to guess which political groups have private weapons which they rely on during such political calendars.

Added to that is the ease with which security agency personnel bring in weapons to sell on the open market, without the relevant agencies monitoring movement and use of such commodities.

The relevant issue now, in our opinion, is for John Mahama to lie low and concede; defeat or go back to his party supporters and say “we lied; we did not win the presidential election”.