Security Analyst, Colonel Festus Aboagye has urged the government to be firm in dealing with persons behind political violence in the country as the 2020 polls beckon.
Col. Aboagye made the call when he shared his views on The Big Issue on the violence that erupted in the Odododiodoo constituency last week.
According to him, issues of “political violence poses a greater threat to our national unity than those kinds of external threats.”
He thus urged the government to allow the security agencies to deal with issues holistically to avoid its reoccurrence in the near future.
“Odododiodoo featured in the violence list during the voters’ registration. There was an incident at Zongo lane which passed without too many comments because at the time, there were other incidents that were probably a bit more violent but on September 1, 2020, the sitting MP was accosted and assaulted in front of a police station and nothing has happened to that case because the MP alleged that those who assaulted him were members of the national security and has gone further to confirm that the recent incident included one of the same group.”
“So until we walk the talk, public rhetoric is not going to help. Sometimes the kind of rhetoric our leaders make do not match the realities on the ground and what we have to acknowledge is the existential threat this possesses.”
He added that “In fact, this is more dangerous than the Western Togoland secessionist group.”
What happened in Odododiodoo?
Supporters of the New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress on Sunday, October 25, 2020, clashed at Jamestown in the Odododiodoo constituency.
15 persons were wounded following the attack in one of the Greater Accra Region’s known hotspots.
The incident occurred while some NDC members were embarking on a campaign walk on Sunday morning.
The supporters pelted each other with stones, bottles and other projectiles.
The fighting was concentrated on the Atta Mills Highway at a junction called One Way.
Security agencies must apply the law without partisan considerations
Meanwhile, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the country’s security services must give no partisan consideration in the discharge of their duties.
He said anyone who is found to have erred in the part of the law must be dealt with according to the dictates of the law.
President Akufo-Addo said he expects security agencies to be colour-blind politically to be able to effectively deliver on their mandate.
“The way in which the police service is acting now is the way in which I think the police should act, which is to be even-handed in the application of the law. Police and security agencies in the country should be colour-blind when it comes to enforcing the law.”
“What I mean about colour-blind is politically colour-blind. The fact that there is an NPP government in place should not lead to a situation whereby if some NPP people are found to be involved in wrongdoing, somehow the police will turn their back on it. We saw that in the past and it doesn’t engender any good feeling in the country,” Akufo-Addo said.
The president made the call in an interview with Metro TV on Thursday, October 29, 2020.