Jobless NPP youth resort to hooliganism

Joblessness and disappointment, among the young supporters of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), is becoming visible daily, with street protests and criminal destruction of state and party properties and injuring of persons across the country.

During the 2016 elections campaign, Nana Akufo-Addo, declared that the armies of unemployed youth in the country, pose a security threat to the country, and indeed, almost eleven months into his presidency, the state apparatus, especially the police, has most times been outnumbered and overpowered by the NPP activists, angry at lack of the jobs they were promised.

One such acts of hooliganism, which has unemployment as the remote cause, has led to the arrest of the NPP Constituency executives in Karaga in the North Region, including Chairman; Tahiru Zakaria, and Constituency Secretary; Abdulai Zakaria and two others by armed police for their roles in two violence incidences.

The chaos, has resulted in the District Chief Executive (DCE) and the local director of Youth Employment Agency from the area unable to go to their offices and work.

Those arrested also include; Baba Ali Osman and Mohammed Alhassan.

All the four, according to the police, were identified by the DCE, Mohammed Yabdoo, as those behind last Wednesday’s disturbances among the party members over jobs grievances. They were arrested after regional executives, persuaded them to come to Tamale for a party meeting at the Fuo residence of Bugri Naabu.

The chairman and the secretary, were said to have brushed off an invitation by the police regional command over the violence. The police had to use subterfuge to get them into Tamale fearing arresting them could lead to another round of violence in the area.

Top party regional leaders, including Salifu Saeed, Northern Regional Minister and the NPP Regional Chairman, Bugri Naabu, all fled out of the region, immediately the chairman, his alleged accomplices arrived in the region for the meeting, leaving them under the surveillance of the regional police.

After several hours in the regional capital, the chairman, realised the meeting was a sham and decided to travel back home ignoring the invitation by the police. They were, however, chased by armed police and arrested at a village, only a few metres to the district capital.

“The chairman had earlier refused to honour an invitation from the Regional Police Command to assist in police investigations. They are currently in custody”, Regional Police spokesman, ASP Mohamed Yussif Tanko clarified in a statement to reporters.

Shortly after the arrest, some NPP rampaging youth, stormed the chief’s palace last Friday night, demanding his intervention following the arrest of their chairman and secretary.

Nearly 50 angry supporters of the chairman run-up to the Chief of the area, seeking clearance and support to hit the street and pour out resentment over the arrest of their chairman.

Supporters of the chairman, who flooded the chief palace immediately after the arrest, according to sources, demanded a permission to vent mayhem, but the chief, reportedly turned down the demand and urged for calm and dialogue.

Earlier in Tamale, another aggrieved NPP supporters, locked up the offices of the Regional Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme. The group calling itself “Burma Camp” claimed they were doing so, because of some decisions taken by the managers of the programme, which was in sharp contrast to their position.

Last week Friday, yet another enraged youth of the NPP calling themselves Party Royals, disrupted the election of a Presiding Member for the Adeiso District Assembly in the Eastern Region saying the DCE, whom they are not happy with, wanted to impose a Presiding Member on them.

The angry youth, besieged a Pentecost Church where the election was taking place, and assaulted some Assembly Members, supposedly over their failure to vote for the party’s preferred candidate, Eric Kwesi Mensah, for the position of presiding member.

The incumbent Presiding Member, Teye Daniel, is believed to be a sympathizer of the opposition party National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the Party Royals, want him out.

The Adeiso District Police have since begun investigations into the circumstances that led to the incident. As at Saturday, Adeiso District Police Commander, ASP Abrefi Yeboah, said they were yet to make an arrest.

A member of the NPP in area disclosed that the youth had earlier warned the Assembly members of their intent to attack them should they fail to unseat the incumbent presiding member.

“They informed us that they are aware that 24 Assembly Members are loyalists of the NPP, while 15 of the rest are from the NDC, so they expect to get 27 votes for the party’s preferred candidate. They added that, should the preferred candidate fail to attain 24 votes from the 24 Assembly members believed to be from the NPP, they will lock us up in the building and beat us.”

“After the voting, both candidates had 19 votes, making it a split, so the electoral officer decided that the house should take a breather for an hour and return to vote for the second time, but this declaration of the votes by the electoral officer did not go down well with the youth who had gathered at the back of the church building.”

The source disclosed that, there was an initial contest at the party level between the candidate the party preferred, and another person who is allegedly being sponsored by the District Chief Executive, Eugene Sackey.

But after fierce competition and engagements at the party level, the DCE’S candidate was disqualified.

This, according to the source, made the youth believe that the DCE was not in favour of the party’s preferred candidate.

“They came in and identified some assembly members they claim did not vote for the party’s preferred candidate, and started slapping them, hitting them, which caused other members to run for their lives. The police officers were outnumbered and overpowered.”

On Thursday, the party’s in the Sisala West district of the Upper West Region went on a rampage chasing out the District Chief Executive of area Mr. Zakaria Mohammed Bakor.

Meanwhile, the NPP National Youth Organiser, Sammy Awuku has berated the police for failing to deal decisively with political vigilantism in the country stating explicitly that officials of the law enforcement agency do not need clearance from the NPP before dealing with such hooligans.

Mr. Awuku has stated that these acts of lawlessness must be dealt with by the police who has a duty to protect lives and property.

“The police should arrest those youth, whether they are NPP or NDC or CPP. If they are arrested, we as NPP will not contribute finically or legally to release them.

“This is a strong warning to all the youth of the NPP and all that the laws will work. We cannot continue to condone stupidity, we can’t accept that. We take a very serious exception to what happened at Karaga. The President is really working hard to fight against poverty in the country, and so we cannot allow saboteurs to be taking us backward.”

“Let me also caution those who hide behind the actions of the youth to foment trouble that the police will deal with them if they are caught.”

“The police should act with dispatch, if the person has violated the law, he must be dealt with, it’s as simple as that.”