WANEP berates Wontumi for treasonable comments

Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Emmamuel Bombande, has described as a “threat to peace” comments made by Chairman Wontumi advocating for an uprising.

The Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, is alleged to have advocated for an “Arab uprising” against the Mahama-led administration.

Mr. Antwi-Boasiako, popularly referred to as 'Chairman Wontumi', at a rally in the Ashanti Region, vowed to replicate in the region a regime-changing uprising, similar to the Tunisia uprising.

The unrest in Tunisia began after an unemployed 26-year-old, Mohammed Bouazizi, protested against corruption, poverty and political repression in government by setting fire to himself on December 17, 2010. This act led to the resignation of the then President of Tunisia, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

The success of the uprising inspired a wave of similar protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Registering his displeasure at the piloted capitation policy of the National Health Insurance Scheme at the rally, Chairman Wontumi cautioned the President to halt the policy or face an irate mob he intends to organize to imitate the Tunisian revolution.

Speaking in an interview on the Gold Power Drive with Valentina Ofori Afriyie, the Executive Director of WANEP, Emmanuel Bombande, disagrees with Chairman Wontumi’s assertion.

“Chairman Wontumi has a complete lack of knowledge of the political context in Tunisia that led to that spark which later engulfed North Africa which we call today as the Arab Spring. If he knew the political context, he will not make a comparison on a political platform in Ghana,” he bemoaned.

According to Mr. Bombande, the peaceful political atmosphere in Ghana should send a signal that the country is not ready for an uprising.

“The fact that he (Wontumi) can stand on a political platform, speak the way he spoke and be walking about freely shows why Ghana cannot have an Arab Spring. It is this type of liberty and freedom to express yourself politically as a politician which was completely absent in Tunisia leading to the uprising,” he disclosed.

Mr. Bombande condemned loose talk by some politicians in the country, quizzing whether or not political leaders ought to be thought the “basis and fundamentals of what politics is” when they assume leadership positions.

The Executive Director of WANEP is entreating persons who are not happy with the political happenings in the country to exercise restraint and use legal procedures of election rather than advocating for an uprising.

“Elected government can be overthrown through other means that is not the electoral process; and in all its character, that now becomes treasonable. The last person who should be talking in this term should not be a politician who has the high office of being the regional chairman of his party because it is a bad example,” he condemned.

The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding is calling on the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP to, as a matter of urgency, ratify the damage caused by his comment.