NPP thuggery: Blay's comment reckless – Anyidoho

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has rejected its acting national chairman, Freddie Blay, over his comment that supporters of the NPP who took over state installations were protecting those institutions, Koku Anyidoho, a Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has said.

According to him, since Mr Blay made this comment, no executive of the NPP had supported his stance. Rather, he continued, a statement issued by Chief of Staff Frema Osei Opare has urged the police to deal with those miscreants arrested. He believes that the silence of the executives of the NPP on the matter is an indication the party has rejected Mr Blay.

Mr Blay, following news of NPP supporters allegedly taking over state facilities and brutalising innocent Ghanaians, said: “At the harbour, people are stealing cars, people are carrying away items that should attract duties and so forth, containers being taken away without going through the right processes and so forth and I think people should be bold enough to say: ‘Stop what you are doing’.

“It is your duty, my duty, to stop anybody stealing even an individual property if you have good reason to know that what the person is doing amounts to stealing. If you see people stealing cars from the harbour, taking them away, are you suggesting that we should wait and go and call the police before they stop them?”

But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on Tuesday January 17, Mr Anyidoho said: “Freddie Blay was irresponsible in his comment. He is a lawyer, at least we all know he went through the law school, whether the law didn’t go through him is another thing altogether, but at least we know he went through the law school and the faculty.”

“He should understand that you cannot get up and say that people who don’t have any authority are protecting state properties. Freddie Blay’s statement was extremely irresponsible and reckless and I am happy that at least from the presidency, the Chief of Staff, Frema Opare, has issued a statement to the effect that the security agencies to do their work. I have not heard any party executive support Freddie Blay’s statement so it means that Freddie Blay is standing alone on his extremely reckless statement. He should be ashamed of himself.”