Ghanaians are regretting the government transition - Mahama

Former President John Mahama has condemned the thuggery being perpetrated by some supporters of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) through vigilante groups such as the Delta Force and Invincible Forces.

At a meeting with his former appointees on 28 March, Mr Mahama said the NPP and the government cannot use thuggery to retrieve allegedly missing state cars as being perpetrated by the Invincible Forces in particular.

“If you cannot look for vehicles in a more civilised manner than having troops going into people’s houses, breaking down their gates and say you are looking for vehicles, you cannot go to DVLA and look through the database and find out what government vehicles are available, then what kind of efficiency do we have in government?” Mr Mahama wondered, adding: “Just this morning, I heard Agyekum’s [former MP for Nkoranza South] house was raided. … And they [NPP] will always come back and apologise because those are not vehicles that belong to the state.

“Government is saying they cannot look for an efficient manner of looking for vehicles than forming storm troops to raid people’s house and I think that it is wrong. I am going to have the opportunity to tell Nana Addo that they should stop this… This cannot continue, this thuggery is not good for our country and the point is we thought we had a good transition.

“…This [incident] serves as examples that make it difficult in future when there is another transition for another government to restrain party supporters. All the thuggery, removing people from office, beating people, is unfortunate. We must say it in the strongest terms and if they heed it fine, if they don’t, it is a learning process for our whole country.”