National Women Organiser of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Hannah Bissiw, has referred to president Nana Addo’s call on the leadership of the NDC and NPP to do the needful by disbanding their respective vigilante groups as a ‘talk shop.’
During the 2019 State of Nations Address (SONA), the president stated that “I want to use the platform of this message to make a sincere, passionate appeal to the leaders of the two main political parties in our country, NPP and NDC, to come together, as soon as possible, preferably next week, to agree on appropriate measures to bring an end to this worrying and unacceptable phenomenon of vigilantism in our body politic.”
Hannah Bisiw was however, not enthused by the president’s remarks. In an interview on Happy FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ political show, she said ‘’ the NPP is the only political party that had laid claims on vigilante groups as security measure to win the 2016 elections and have also absorbed members of the invisible and delta forces into the BNI, the police service and the military.’’
‘She also said “charity begins at home, so the president should withdraw the members of the delta and invisible forces before he can make such demands from the NDC.’’
According to her the NPP is not even the right authority to initiate a dialogue on combating the scourge of party militias and vigilantism.
“It should be a neutral body like the National Peace Council or Christian council,” she added.
She also claimed that the president in the 2019 SONA failed to mention pertinent issues like the insecurity that has bedevilled his administration.
She enumerated some of the recent alleged contract killings and other violent crimes like the murder of Joseph Migal Jinjer, a senior staff of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Josephine Asante, the Marketing and Public Affairs Manager of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), undercover journalist with Tiger Eye PI Ahmed Hussein-Suale, the Takoradi kidnapped girls, and the Ayawaso by-election violence as a few of the examples that make the country unsafe that the president did not address in the SONA.
Meanwhile Ex-president Rawlings in a Twitter post, said the NDC and NPP must heed the President’s call to join forces in combating the scourge of party militias.
“President @NAkufoAddo’s #SONA2019 was disarming. I do hope the NDC @OfficialNDCGh, and the NPP @NPP_GH will heed the call to join forces in combating the scourge of party militias and violent vigilantism,” he wrote.
However, former president, John Mahama seems to agree with Hannah Bissiw.
When he was interviewed on a sister station in Accra, he made similar comments, describing Nana Akufo-Addo’s call for the two major parties to dialogue on disbanding party militias as “too simplistic”.
According to the former President, the menace has become complex, therefore, other players must be brought on board.
By: Bridget Mensah
