Most Fr. Rev Emmanuel Kofi Fianu – Chairman of National Peace Council (NPC)
It is heartwarming to note the subtle admission by the National Peace Council (NPC) that there is a rising political tension in the country.
With the arrests of New Patriotic Party (NPP) aligned persons by hooded men in the sometimes dead of night, why won’t there be fear and panic across the country.
The give-and-take engagements between activists of the two dominant parties on social media add to the tension, especially in the wake of arrests of only NPP youth.
While we welcome the observation as contained in the NPC statement which calls for restraint and calm, we nonetheless wish to take exception to the timidity in their concerns. Shouldn’t a future amendment of their terms of reference be considered to give the Council more leverage to go beyond issuing such lame statements which do not move the pin on the dial any further?
The political tension in the country started when the National Democratic Congress (NDC)-led government started arresting NPP activists for doing as the former did when they were in opposition. At the time these went on, the NPC could not express any concern, not even a statement condemning the engagement of acerbic tongued youth to insult everybody but their fathers and mothers.
Statements which fail to name and shame the sources of tension in the country should not be issued at all because they represent hypocrisy.
Their statement was issued a few days ago but hardly noticed by the political actors who are responsible for the heightened tension in the country, and who have only been referred to gently, as it were, in the statement.
It is instructive that only NPP activists are being arrested, not so the NDC because their party is in power. Such flagrant show of bias in a country which is supposed to be aligned to the rule of law is a matter of concern. Whatever happened to the ‘Freedom and Justice’ motto or principle upon which our governance is hinged?
As observed by the NPC and rightly so, the tensions stem from the recent arrests of several political actors, which has triggered debates and concerns over national security.
The inflammatory rhetoric as observed by the NPC as being one of the sources of the tensions, and which threaten national cohesion and security, originated from the NDC, which they used to come to power. Today, same is being served them and so it would be difficult to stem the tide unless the abuse of power is stopped forthwith.
The NPC nonetheless deserves plaudits for specifically calling on the security agencies and the judiciary to act with neutrality, transparency, and professionalism to uphold the rights and freedoms of all citizens during sensitive cases which are being created by the government.
That is a tall order because the aforementioned agencies draw their inspiration from the President’s own warning that those who use social media ‘to breach the peace’ would be tracked down and arrested through their IP addresses. Gagging Ghanaians would be resisted by all because power resides in the people of this country.
