Ghana’s President; Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo
Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has slammed the NDC for the conditions they have proposed as basis for a meeting with the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to end political violence and militarism.
A letter written by the NDC to the President on February 28 requested that third parties like the National Peace Council and other civil society groups be allowed to mediate the dialogue between the parties.
The President however says he sees “little basis” for some of the requests made by the NDC.
“I am dismayed, and I believe that the Ghanaian people share my dismay, that the two parties who have dominated and continue to dominate the politics of the fourth republic…cannot meet to dialogue on matters of our nation’s governance and political culture without the intervention of outsiders. It is important that we trust in our own capabilities to resolve our own problems.”
The President also downplayed the request by the NDC that the other opposition parties be included in such dialogues. President Nana Akuf0-Addo insisted that political vigilantism “has unfortunately been associated with the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party.”
Whiles delivering his 2019 State of the Nation Address in Parliament, President Akufo-Addo revealed he had instructed the leadership of the NPP, which he belongs to, to extend an invitation to the opposition NDC to discuss how to disband their respective militia groups.
Akufo-Addo said the phenomenon of political militias could reverse the democratic gains made by the country.
“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,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo promised to use legislation to stop the political vigilantism if the two parties failed to stop it voluntarily.
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