Disbanding vigilante groups: NDC accepts to sign document

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed its readiness to sign the roadmap and the code of conduct on the disbandment of political vigilantism in the country.

“We pray that we all, beyond our signatures, will recognise that peace, like freedom, is an objective whose currency is constant vigilance, love for your neighbour and a patriotism that overrides sectional and discriminatory prejudices,” it said.

Background

The National Peace Council’s (NPC’s) efforts to get the two main political parties to sign its roadmap and code of conduct in eradicating political vigilantism hit a snag on February 4, 2020 when the opposition NDC failed to sign the document.

At a ceremony for the representatives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the NDC to sign the document, the NPP signed the document, “Roadmap and Code of Conduct for the Eradication of Political Vigilantism in Ghana”, but the NDC said other stakeholders were needed to also sign the document.

The 31-page roadmap had what the parties needed to do in the short, medium and long term to eradicate political vigilantism from Ghana’s political dispensation.

Moreover, a member of the NDC team, Mr Alex Segbefia, said he was not qualified to sign the document and further argued that the signing of the document was premature since it could be improved.

Response

In a May 27, 2020 letter signed by the National Chairman of the NDC, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, to the NPC, the NDC said the apparent delay in responding to the NPC’s letter of March 12 was the result of the general dislocations occasioned by the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

In accepting to sign the document, the NDC said it found it unfortunate that the government was the only institution yet to sign the roadmap and code of conduct.

It said it considered the government's persistent refusal to commit to the process by direct engagement in the dialogue as fatal to the chances of success of the entire enterprise.

“Regarding your assertion that the council does not have the mandate to ensure a verification process for the removal of apparent party vigilantes absorbed by the government into the security agencies, my party considers the position the council has taken in this matter as an abandonment of its duty to employ all necessary means within the law to ensure a satisfactory resolution that will promote peace,” it said.

NPC leverage

The letter stated that the party was baffled at the apparent inability of the council to employ its considerable leverage to call on the appropriate authorities to make available to the parties the dialogue information that would assure all of the elimination of the scourge of vigilantism from the country’s body politic.

“The council, in our respectful view, has a duty to secure peace no matter what. To the council, a nation whose people are at peace with one another and whose institutions work seamlessly to secure that peace for all her citizens must be its focus at all times,” it said.

“In our humble view, the National Peace Council has a duty to make a judgement call any time that the peace of Ghana is threatened. In questions of peace and instability, the voice of the peace council must be heard loudly and clearly in proclaiming justice, by which alone peace may be attained,” it stressed.

It reminded the council that silence in the face of unjustified and unlawful violence, silence in the face of the pain of the maimed and the wounded, did not make or promote peace.

“Having provided our considered response to the matters raised in your letter under reply, may I, on behalf of my party, inform the council that we are ready to execute the roadmap and code of conduct. We do this in full knowledge of the very serious challenges that we have with the document which we have outlined in this letter,” it stated.