The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has condemned Assin Central MP Kennedy Agyapong over his staunch support for pro-government vigilante group Delta Force, until recently.

The group has been perpetrating violence since Nana Akufo-Addo was sworn into office in January this year. They recently assaulted the president’s Regional security liaison in Kumasi and also freed from a circuit court, 13 of their colleagues who were standing trial for that crime. The court invasion angered Mr Agyapong, who decided to rescind his support for them.

Condemning the group’s activities and the support it had enjoyed from Mr Agyapong until recently, the GPCC said: “As a Council, we are appalled at some individuals within the ruling party, including a sitting Member of Parliament, whose tacit support and actions seem to be providing oxygen for these criminal elements to carry out these acts of impunity, having the potential of not only casting a slur on their own party leadership and government but undermining the authority of the Presidency, thus eroding the confidence and goodwill that Ghanaians have reposed in the new administration.”

The statement signed by General Secretary, Samuel Y. Antwi, said: “To say the least, the Council sees the latest action by the Delta Forces as the highest act of contempt on our judiciary and a serious threat to our democracy, which must be nipped in the bud before they turn into a monster of unexploded political ordinances ready to explode on our faces in a few years to come if we fail to deal with it collectively as a nation.”

“For the President of the republic to publicly condemn the acts of these groups as criminals while addressing parliament and recently in Kumasi in the presence of the Otumfuo Asantehene and his call on the Police Service to act, attests to the seriousness of this cancer of political vigilantism in Ghana.

“While it is gratifying to note that the Ashanti Regional Police Command has taken the necessary steps in not only arresting some of those criminal elements who attacked the court and the judge, but have rearrested the original 13 Delta Force members standing trial, we urge them to ensure their successful prosecution to serve as a deterrent to those contemplating similar actions and also to restore the police’s battered image in the eyes of the ordinary Ghanaian.

“We also call on the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to openly condemn the actions of the Delta Force, the Invisible Forces and any such similar groups within their ranks, disown and dismantle them to demonstrate to Ghanaians its abhorrence to such extremist elements as a political party.

The Council wishes to assure the entire judiciary of its unflinching support in the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities in safeguarding the rule of law without fear of threats and intimidation.”