Mamobi shooting incident unfortunate 

Last Sunday (13/10/2024), a number of children (some as young as nine years) were shot in Mamobi when some National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) members embarking on their respective weekly “health walks” clashed. 

This was an unfortunate incident that should never have happened. Under normal circumstances, both Yussif Jajah (NDC MP for Ayawaso North) and Ibrahim Sannie (NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Ayawaso North) have the same umbilical cord running through them. 

While it is perfectly understandable for people on oppositional sides of the political divide to get emotionally charged, it is rather despicable that some individuals will carry guns and knives on them at anytime let alone during a community engagement event such as a “health walk”. That some individuals carried guns and knives on them that fateful morning is an act that must be condemned in categorical terms. 

Interestingly, the information I received from the community suggests that the individual behind this heinous crime has done it before - not once, not twice but on many occasions. Allegedly emboldened by the powers-that-be, this individual goes about wreaking havoc in the community at the drop of a hat. It is alleged that following similar unwarranted shooting incidents in which he was alleged to have been involved in, he was arrested but his release was (and has always been) a phone call away. And so, the gun-toting young man goes about intimidating and attacking people in the community knowing very well that he will not face the full rigours of the law as long as his masters continue to be in office. That is impunity.

But what happened in Mamobi that Sunday is symptomatic of the broader challenges we face as we go into these elections. Coming events, they say, cast their shadows. With the security services alleged to have been packed with NPP party faithfuls and loyalists, the confidence of the average Ghanaian in the capacity of our security services to protect not just the processes but also the outcomes of the forthcoming elections, is waning. The belief is that apart from the NPP party faithfuls who have been recruited into the security services to do the bidding of their masters, there are also social miscreants like the one who led the carnage in Mamobi. These social miscreants, mostly from the Zongos have been armed to the hilt to go about intimidating innocent individuals whose only desire is to exercise a right enshrined in the constitution- vote! 

And those miscreants are the ones we need to keep an eye on during these elections in that their modus operandi is to cause commotion so that in the face of the whirlwind, they get to clandestinely steal the electorates’ verdict. 

Over the years, our Zongo brothers because of what is arguably, circumstantial, have allowed themselves to be used to do all the dirty work during elections. In the process, many of them have lost their lives. Interestingly, when the outcomes desired by their paymasters have been achieved, they are chucked in the cesspit to rot away, or on very rare occasions, fed on crumbs. The real beneficiaries are hardly seen - only heard from time to time. And yet our brothers are the ones who are seen shouting at rooftops calling for blood and fire so that their paymasters can be surreptitiously imposed on electorates to amass wealth for themselves and for their families.

The aim of this writeup therefore is to appeal to the collective consciousness of our brothers and sisters in the Zongo communities to be circumspect and not allow themselves to be used and abused by any politician this time around. The Ghana we all envision and desire can only be actualised if we have the right set of leadership installed. The process we have collectively chosen to deliver that outcome is the electoral system and undergirded by a majoritarian philosophy. To interfere with this process is to interfere with the will of the people of Ghana. And that cannot be right. 

Indeed what my Zongo brothers (and sisters) ought to be fighting is the pernicious poverty visited upon them by this government through the mismanagement of the Ghanaian economy:

- the poverty that is denying them their inalienable right to a decent way of living. 

- the poverty that has led many promising young men and women in the community to become junkies

- The poverty that has turned otherwise righteous Muslims into charlatans. 

————————
The author is a UK-based academic and transport consultant who serves as the NDC’s Foreign Relations Director for the Savannah Region.