NDC, hoodlums And weapons

Last week, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) through the Minority in Parliament claimed the recent robbery cases to hit the country were the handiwork of political vigilantism.

They know the source of the robberies for sure because they started the dirty art of incorporating both land guards and armed robbers into political vigilantism. They were foolishly mischievous only falling short of blaming the NPP directly.

It is interesting that the NDC jumped into the fray so quickly. It is not surprising anyway since the party is used to dealing with the subject matter having orchestrated similar scenarios in the past.

We would have been surprised had they not said a word about the occurrence. Seeking to trivialize an otherwise serious subject, the way they are doing, is alarming and exposes them adequately.

Sometime before the elections which threw them out of power, a major unprecedented development occurred in the annals of policing in the country.

President John Mahama directed the Police to stop checking vehicles even at night for possible transfer of arms. Ghanaians were stunned by the criminal novelty and started talking about possible reasons which informed the action.

The reasons adduced were unsurprising. Ghanaians very good at initiating conversations about politics found this directive rather weird and unprecedented.

We were unable to dismiss the hypothesis that the ruling party could be making the transfer of arms from one point to the other possible through such a directive to the law enforcement agency as support for their election day manouvres. It was the first time that the police was being asked not to search vehicles for possible movement of arms. In fact they had reversed the security norms of elections.

It is instructive to note that a few days to the elections, there was a massive arms movement from a major armoury at our defence headquarters; the reason for which was too obvious.

Many who heard about the movement concluded that it was part of a grand plan to resort to violence should the polls not favour them.

The weapons so transferred through the liberation of the streets are in the hands of both land guards and full time armed robbers – some of them deliberately released from prison long before they finished their sentences. They were needed for an NDC political agenda.

For the NDC to turn around to make such a claim is to attempt throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians. When it comes to making friends with men of the underworld, the NPP comes nowhere near the NDC.

Pointing at political vigilantism as the origin of the recent spate of armed robberies does not sound foolish. It makes sense going by the aforementioned premises. After all, the weapons dished out during the elections are still in the hands of the NDC activists; many of them land guards and armed robbers. Many of them saw action in Talensi, Chereponi and other by-election theatres.

Which among the two dominant political parties is a master of the game of violence in politics? It cannot be the ‘booklongish’ NPP whose obsession with the rule of law stands them apart from their arch-rivals, the NDC, masters of election manouvres.