Is Sammy Gyamfi on a suicide mission?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the grossly misguided decision by the leaders of the National Democratic Congress’ political minority to resume their briefly suspended protest demonstrations against the statutorily backed perfectly legitimate decision by the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and Mrs. Jean A. Mensa’s associate Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners and staff to guarantee the integrity of the 2020 general election by compiling a new National Biometric Voters’ Register (NBVR) – (See “New Register: Expect More Massive Protests – Opposing [sic] Parties Threaten EC” News Desk – Modernghana.com 1/25/20).

Democratic free expression and free speech protect the right of any legitimately registered political party to peacefully protest any policy decisions or initiatives, such as the very kosher decision by the IEC to compile a new voters’ register.

The operative word or keyword in the preceding observation is, of course, the adjective of “peaceful.” The decision by the leaders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to resume their protest demonstrations, we are told, is directly predicated on the definitive decision by the IEC administrators to begin the compilation of the new NBVR from April 18 to May 30, even as the IEC’s operatives also acceded to the scheduling of a forum for “constructive engagement” with the leaders of the protesting political parties, the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) and the IEC-established Eminent Advisory Commission (EAC) to iron out any misunderstandings on the part of the protesters vis-à-vis the imperative necessity for the compilation of a New National Biometric Voters’ Register on January 30, 2020.

We contend that the NDC’s leaders may be grossly misguided because they seem to think that the January 30th meeting, somehow, has precedence over the evidence-backed decision by the IEC to compiling a new voters’ register. No such notion could be more scandalously absurd, if also because the decision to compiling a new voters’ register has already been extensively deliberated upon by the legitimately elected parliamentary representatives of the Ghanaian electorate and resoundingly approved by an overwhelming majority of our legislators at a plenary session of Parliament. Consequently, it clearly constitutes the height of farcicality for the leader or the leaders of any political party or parties to casually presume to be able to reverse or revoke such momentous and legitimate decision via mere protest demonstrations.

That, of course, is the law of the jungle from which the leaders of the National Democratic Congress scandalously do not appear to have been able to healthily weaned themselves of or from, since the inception of the enviably civilized and very modern democratic dispensation of Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

But what most piqued the attention of yours truly and that which constitutes the subject or the main thrust of this column, is that unmistakably seditious and treasonable declaration by Mr. Gyamfi, the so-called Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress, that operatives from his party intended to actually physically occupy the Headquarters of the IEC and its offices across all 16 regions of the country.

This is where the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) must promptly draw the line between democratic free speech and/or free expression and the violent takeover of the entire machinery of State by the “revolutionary” terrorists leadership of the Rawlings-minted National Democratic Congress. A shoot-to-kill order may definitely and perfectly be in order here. No two ways about that; and the Mahama Posse had better heed this advance warning or have itself to blame in the offing. Ghana is a constitutional democracy and a country of laws, not the law of the jungle.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: [email protected]

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs