Pro-NPP militia groups welcome dismantling

Policy of Thursday, April 4, 2019

Source: ghanaiantimes.com.gh

2019-04-04

The pro-new Patriotic Party (NPP) militia groups have welcomed the government's decision to end political militancy in the country.

They said that the importance of self-defense groups had been mitigated by the creation of similar groups, hence the support for the dissolution, if the state found the need to dissolve it, they supported it because, previously, there were no such groups.

The activities of political party militia groups would tend to destabilize the country and reverse the democratic progress made by Ghana over the years. The violence that marred the partial election of the constituency of Ayawaso West Wuogon due to the alleged activities of politically aligned self-defense groups led to a broader discussion on the subject treaty.

They noted that "if everyone in the country speaks against political vigilance and the president also finds the need to dissolve it, we support it, we created the group to defend our polling stations.

"Usually, when there are elections, we hear stories in which people go to urns in our strongholds, we formed groups to prevent people from stealing ballot boxes and we won the elections. 2016, "said the leaders of the groups.

The president said he would take legislative action to end the anarchy perpetrated by the groups if the dialogue between the two main political parties, the NPP and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) failed. However, the NPP and the NDC have agreed to meet to discuss the dissolution of the groups.

However, President Nana Akufo-Addo, who had instructed the Attorney General to prepare a bill to end the phenomenon of political vigilance, said that nothing would prevent his administration from fighting the threat.

The phenomenon of vigilance sparked a national debate following the intensification of violence perpetrated by members of NDC and NPP self-defense groups. Some of these attacks resulted in death and injury to victims, including innocent citizens.

While many political parties and other stakeholders have said that the legislation would lead to no positive result, a private lawyer, Martin Kpebu, said it's "early days" for citizens to reject the project. from the government to formulate a law to put an end to the activities of these group people, the decision of the president could have many advantages, hence the incentive to wait until the bill is adopted before canceling it ".