What is happening in Kumawu could well be a reverse psychology

By Rockson Adofo

Throughout Ghana, there are daily allegations of NPP supporters maltreating the defeated NDC party faithful and supporters since the defeat of the NDC at the 7 December 2016 polls. Some of these allegations are true and others are totally false; they are purely fabrications churned out of the NDC propaganda machines.

In the year 2008 when the late President Evans Atta Mills, then NDC presidential-candidate won the elections with NDC winning parliamentary majority to form the government, the NDC supporters went on spontaneous rampages.

They started to beat NPP supporters. They resorted to total violence to chasing NPP supporters who were then managing public toilets and other public facilities out of their jobs. They even went to the extent of hacking some NPP supporters to death using machetes, it was alleged. A typical instance of such deaths took place at Agogloshie market in Accra.

I do not support any idea of tit for tat or an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth in running Ghana’s politics. The NDC started it but I will not support anyone who desires to pay them back in their own coin. However, legal means must be used to redress the excesses of the lawless NDC fanatics and supporters.

It is very strange that in Kumawu, the land of my birth, what may clearly seem a reverse psychology with regard to the alleged ongoing inter-party violence is the order of the day.

A few NDC supporters from the Kumawu Zongo Community are rather those who have stupidly been taking a fight to the majority NPP supporters who are principally of the Akan extraction.

These Zongo yobs are led by one lady called Abiba and one” Line man’s” son called Yasil. I did personally go to Kumawu to see things for myself. I had the opportunity to speak to one Sophia who although was attacked by one of the Zongo ladies, she did not fight the woman back even though she could have beaten the Zongo woman to a pulp.

These same few Zongo boys and girls did attack the daughter of a midwife at Kumawu Gyidi not far from the Kumawu Zongo. They beat her up and nearly damaged her eye, I was informed. She went to the hospital to have her injury treated, reported the case to the Kumawu police who are, but displaying a lukewarm attitude to the whole case.

I understand the MP, Hon. Phillip Basoah, has been to the Kumawu police station to question why the police are not making any efforts to arrest the girl’s attackers to bring a closure to the ongoing political attacks on the supporters of the NPP by those few NDC activists who are indeed no match for the NPP supporters should they avenge the beatings on some of them.

I may know why those few NDC supporters are doing that but I shall reserve its revelation until I have conducted a full investigation into it. On that day, there shall be wailing and shedding of tears.

What is Reverse psychology? “Reverse psychology is a technique involving the advocacy of a belief or behavior that is opposite to the one desired, with the expectation that this approach will encourage the subject of the persuasion to do what actually is desired: the opposite of what is suggested. This technique relies on the psychological phenomenon of reactance, in which a person has a negative emotional reaction to being persuaded, and thus chooses the option which is being advocated against. The one being manipulated is usually unaware of what is really going on” - Wikipedia.

One would normally expect the NPP supporters who are the majority in Kumawu with their party about to form the government to attack the NDC supporters but not the vice versa hence using Reverse psychology as title for this publication.

I expect the Kumawu Police to be more proactive than reactive. They have to take appropriate measures to deter the few Zongo yobs from continually pursuing their criminal intents before the problem escalates into a bigger inter-party/inter-tribal violence.

Even though most of the Zongo people are naturally NDC members and do vote NDC, it is just a few yobs who are causing troubles. In Kumawu, most of the Zongo men have married or have had children with the Ashanti women and we all live in peace as one people despite our political affiliations. Therefore, the police should not allow this handful of yobs to cause problems for the remaining majority of law-abiding Kumawu subjects.