The Brong Ahafo Regional Coordinating Committee of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to desist from the continuous harassment, molestation, intimidation and violent attacks on NDC functionaries and their property to ensure peace in the region.
According to the committee, such acts only go to undermine the peace and unity of the people. It called for an immediate end to them. The call was contained in a communiqu? issued at the end of its first regional coordinating meeting held at Sunyani.
It said such acts threaten the peace of the region and do not augur well for the development of a tolerant democratic co-existence of all political parties.
The communiqu?, said the committee, has evidence of such attacks and described the denial of the allegations by the Press Secretary of the NPP on radio and in one of the dailies as unfortunate because the matter was not investigated. It cited Sunyani, Dormaa Ahenkro and Kintapo as some of the few places where such acts have been reported.
The communiqu? mentioned that at Sunyani Johnson Asiedu Nketia was verbally assaulted while he was on air at Sky FM, on August 31 while on January 11 another supporter of the party, Kojo Ntow, was also assaulted at Dormaa Ahenkro by some youth of the NPP when he was on his way to pay his water bill.
It mentioned the destruction of a vehicle belonging to the regional GPRTU after its chairman, who happens to be the NDC regional chairman had released it to the police at their request to enable them arrest some youth at Kintampo. The communiqu? said in this era of the rule of law, such acts should not be permitted and asked the NPP leadership to caution their members to desist from such acts.
It said, the NDC as a party, has no interest whatsoever to exacerbate tension in the region as alleged by the NPP Press Secretary in his press statement. It said, “It is the constitutional duty of the government to protect all citizens of the country and that any breach of the peace by elements of the ruling party should be seen as an indictment on the performance of the NPP government.
The communiqu? also called on the leadership of the party to educate their members, supporters and activists, particularly the youth, to uphold the cardinal virtues of love, tolerance and peaceful co-existence so as to avoid such unwarranted, destructive and provocative acts in the future.
“We are also calling on the Police Administration in the region to investigate these incidents and bring the perpetrators to book and institute measures to prevent further recurrence of any such lawlessness.”
