#OccupyGhana condemns Mahama’s assassination

Pressure group OccupyGhana has promised to make its services available to political parties in order to stamp out violence in their activities despite its apolitical orientation.

In a statement issued on Tuesday to condemn what it describes as the assassination of Alhaji Adams Mahama, the Upper East Region Chairman of New Patriotic Party (NPP), OccupyGhana said it is committed “to engaging with and working with the leadership of all political parties and groupings to develop and sustain workable programs aimed at stamping out violence in the activities of all such groups.”

Alhaji Mahama’s death has rekindled the issue of political intolerance in the country, a phenomenon which the pressure group claims dates back to the British colonial era.

Below is the full statement:

OCCUPYGHANA CONDEMNS ASSASSINATION OF ADAMS MAHAMA

OccupyGhana has learnt with shock and indignation, the death, last Thursday 21st May, of Mr. Adams Mahama, the Upper East Region Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the hands of some persons under clearly criminal circumstances.

We send heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies to the family, friends and associates of Mr. Adams Mahama and call on them as well as the entirety of Ghanaians to remain calm. In times like these, calmness, more than any other virtue is the best option to exercise.

In urging calm, we also wish to express our firm belief and conviction that the Ghana Police Service is doing everything possible to bring the perpetrators of that dastardly act to justice, to vindicate the nation and get justice for Mr. Adams Mahama. We support the relevant authorities in their quest to identify all persons who are complicit in this crime and to bring them to book.

In this direction, OccupyGhana calls on all persons who may have any knowledge of the circumstances surrounding and leading to this loss of life, to step forward and pass on any such information to the appropriate authorities. No person deserves to die in the manner Mr. Adams Mahama did and no person has the right to take another's life in the circumstances Mr. Adams Mahama's life was taken.

The origin of the fault line of physical violence in Ghana's politics, no doubt, can be traced to British colonialist policies and practices, under which those who demanded independence were hounded, imprisoned and sometimes, killed. We recall the brutal murder of Sgt. Adjetey and 2 others on 28th February 1948, who were doing nothing but exercising their freedom of expression and right to demonstrate. These were undemocratic practices that the colonialists could never have implemented in their home country.

Unfortunately, with the advent of independence a more vicious form of political violence was to be introduced: the phenomenon of "machoism," feeding on the unfortunate mentality that the only way to handle political differences is to visit physical violence on one's opponents.

We also recall with regret the violence that attended Ghana's politics of the immediate post-independence era and its dire repercussions and consequences on national cohesion. Many were unjustifiably imprisoned, and sometimes maimed or killed; some of the wounds of that era are yet to heal.

It is unfortunate that nearly six decades after independence, we are yet to fully rid our politics of machoism. Political parties have nurtured and fed this 'beast' and given it room to transmogrify and mutate into a clear and present national danger, the latest form of which is the unjustified attack that has resulted in the assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama.

Occupy Ghana is fully convinced that our political parties, their members and followers have no justification to continue along a path of violence.

Occupy Ghana therefore takes this opportunity to demand of the leadership, members and supporters of all political parties in Ghana, assiduous work to eliminate and eschew all forms of violence in their intra- and inter-party engagements.

Ghana deserves politics of tolerance of divergent views in spite of vigorous contests for control and leadership at various levels of politics.

Occupy Ghana commits to engaging with and working with the leadership of all political parties and groupings to develop and sustain workable programs aimed at stamping out violence in the activities of all such groups.

For the rest of us, the death of Mr. Adams Mahama should not be seen as just another "partisan" occurrence but rather a signal that our politics is at the cusp of a trajectory of self-destruction.

We must all show a commitment to do away with all forms and manifestations of violence as a means of resolving differences. Our daily lives and work, and even politics might entail competition; but any competition that employs violence is not worth sustaining.

The death of Mr. Adams Mahama is murder, plain and simple, and ought to be treated as such. Those who seek to play politics with Mr. Adams Mahama's death ought to know that the sensibilities of many, especially the family of the deceased are at stake.

We mourn Mr. Adams Mahama and pray that his death will be the last of such in our nation's politics.

Yours in the Service of occupying minds for God and County.