Change has come indeed to political violence!
Yes, real palpable and dramatic change has come to the long-running depressing story of inter-party political violence in this country since 1993. The mode, intensity and victims of party violence since the December victory and January inauguration into office of President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have all changed.
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Contrary to what you may be thinking, that change is not a positive, legal and constitutional response, but a sad degeneration into channels which threaten the stability and endurance of the constitutional order and also threatens security installations and personnel. We are living in dangerous times.
Change in trend
The most obvious and negative change that has come to recurring party violence since January this year is that unlike past occurrences in previous regimes from Presidents Rawlings to Mahama, the victims of political party violence visited on others by ruling party members are for the first time, fellow NPP party members and not members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and vice versa as the practice had been since 1993.
Since late February this year or so, the violence visited on party members perpetrated by other party members have been wholly restricted to the ruling NPP members fighting not only for access to power which has been won handsomely in December, but to public office employment or lack thereof, challenging the employment of other NPP members by the President and employing bloodcurdling and savage inhuman methods in so doing. Plus another significant difference; the party mobsters are organised groups with fantastic names some in existence prior to the elections such as Delta Force, Western Crocodiles, Bolgatanga Bulldogs and Kandahar Boys.
Examples are legion. The much-quoted Kumasi case began with a video-filmed assault of the NPP–appointed regional security coordinator who was dragged from his office by other NPP members. Police arrests and prosecutions followed in a manner which would have warmed the lawless heart of Comrade Stalin or Herr Hitler or the worst excesses of our own military past.
The pinnacle of this particular case was the invasion of a sitting law court by NPP Delta Force members, and the forcible release of those apprehended for manhandling the security coordinator.
The culprits were eventually slapped on the wrists with ridiculous fines and walked away from court free men.
The case of the Karaga District Chief Executive is still brewing. The Kintampo Falls incident has come and gone with the loss of 19 innocent lives. The rising engagement of civil society was provoked by the post of former President John Mahama asking for the whereabouts of their voices as general insecurity and lawlessness by ruling NPP members stare us in the face.
But the truth is that those whose limbs are being broken on a daily basis, whose lives are being lost and whose businesses and offices are being destroyed are fellow NPP members not the opposition NDC. When I hear NPP communicators thus seek to equalise in their discussion of this new phenomenon, I get scandalised. Mr John Boadu, the NPP acting General Secretary, obviously does not care that the victims of current political violence are his own party members not the NDC and is busy justifying and equalising. Which NDC member was involved in the Kumasi incident or Karaga, either as a perpetrator or a victim?
Enforcing the law
There are additional ways in which the political violence of today is very different from that of the past. Our President built a formidable reputation as a human rights champion when he was a practising lawyer; the party he leads is also allegedly, the champion of the rule of law.
I, therefore, get amused when the police and other law enforcement agencies are made to seem as those responsible for the breakdown in law and order.
Our police force, unlike the police forces of Western countries from which we got ours, is not independent. Ours is a national force with national and lower officers and men who take orders from above. It is an arm of executive power and the President appoints its head. If it is not performing, therefore, it is the President who has ultimate responsibility.
But of course I agree the President has a political problem ordering his party members who worked for his electoral victory to be law—abiding. But this defence rings hollow when we realise that the victims of hooliganism are other NPP members. It is no defence to lawlessness and hooliganism to say these thugs are impatient with a party that promised heaven. How does beating up fellow party members guarantee anything by way of employment?
A stronger reason exists for presidential powerlessness in the face of these threats to law and order. That reason is the way and manner the campaign that ended in NPP victory last December was conducted by the victor. Private armies were established and operated openly by the party and justified as provoked by the inability or unwillingness of the then ruling NDC to guarantee the safety of NPP leaders.
Public statements bordering on rebellion, treason and general lawlessness were freely and happily made either as proof of courage when no threats were proffered or as threats in the event of defeat, which was ruled out as the probable outcome of a skewed and flawed electoral system. The alternative to defeat was supposed to be the lawless society of the terror-filled country in South East Asia, Afghanistan.
In the event, the NPP won big. The ruling NDC withdrew peacefully from power. No person lost his life because of any dispute regarding the peaceful transfer of power.
In all this, we are all forgetting that every day, the number of floating voters increase and they are surely the deciders of the fate of parties, and not the activist foot soldiers whose activities turn off the sympathisers. Any time there is a hue and cry about government inability to enforce the law for partisan considerations, more of our people are turned off - open identification with particular parties. I am very sure our President is fully aware of all these things and knows what to do to return Ghana to peaceful existence.