Shun parties that use vigilantism to secure mandate of people — NDP

The General Secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Mr Mohammed Frimpong, has called on Ghanaians to denounce any political party that uses vigilantism as a tool to secure their mandate to rule the country.

He said vigilantism was a very serious matter and that any party that allowed it was virtually adopting an ultra vires means to secure the mandate of the people, stressing that “we need to frown on that.”

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic on the phenomenon of vigilantism in the body politic of the country, Mr Frimpong called for “a kind of advocacy that would make vigilantism useless with negative repercussions for any political entity that adopts such a practice.”

Speak openly against vigilantism

He urged the Peace Council, churches, traditional authorities and opinion leaders to speak openly against any party that adopted vigilantism as a tool for winning the mandate of the people.

Mr Frimpong described the practice as useless and for that matter any party that resorted to it had to be shunned by the people because such a party had nothing to give to the people and that “it is not there to serve the people.”

He opined that instead of political parties branding themselves properly for acceptance, some tended to opt for vigilantism, pointing out that vigilantism did not enhance a brand but rather detracted from it, and that it was an affront to national peace, security and harmony.

“It is using coercive power to secure a mandate and when that is done, then it means as a nation we are not at liberty at all because we would not have the liberty of choice,” he explained.

Playing with dog

Reacting to the recent incident where the vigilante group, Delta Force, forcefully disrupted a meeting between the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tafo Pankrono in the Ashanti Region, he said: ”We have a saying that if you play with a dog, it licks your mouth so if they went and encouraged vigilantes to come to power, then the vigilantes would also come at them but the method is not right and ought to be condemned outrightly.”

Mr Frimpong maintained that any political party that would want to use vigilantism as a tool to gain the mandate of the people must rather be completely denounced and devalued in the eyes of the electorate.

For that matter, “the people, civil society groups, the Peace Council and all right thinking people must launch a strong advocacy in making sure that it becomes an abomination for any political party to promote vigilantism as a tool to win or maintain itself in power.”
Writer’s email: victor.kwawukume@graphic.com.gh