Politics of Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Source: peacefmonline.com

NDC ‘going overboard’ with vigilante letters to presidency – John Boadu

John Boadu John Boadu

The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu has cautioned the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be mindful of their action in the process of the disbandment of vigilantism.

According to him, “the president is not their co-equal for them to be writing to him all the time instead of them (NDC) addressing their concerns to the NPP headquarters, the NDC is ‘going overboard’ with their numerous letters to the presidency, as they have already written to the Peace Council and wondering why they wrote to the president again.

“If they are not interested in the dialogue, they should let Ghanaians know and stop the back and forth tactics they are exhibiting, sometimes when someone doesn’t want to do something, they try everything possible to come out with many excuses to create negative impressions.

“The NDC as a party is coming from a revolutionary background, unleashing violence has always been their hallmark, we are not surprised about what they are doing, what I notice concerning disbandment of vigilante groups is to bring the name of the president into the discussion, and later turn around and accuse him of sidelining them in the process.

“The NDC should accept the verdict of the Peace Council after the dialogue because the NPP is always committed to disbandment of vigilantism since it does not benefit us in any way.

Relatedly, the NDC has asked the National Peace Council to choose a date and venue for the proposed party militia disbandment talks between the party and the NPP as proposed by the president during his third State of the Nation Address.

In a response to the NPP’s official invitation to the talks, the NDC, in a letter signed by the General Secretary, Asiedu Nketia, indicated that, “We write to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated March 15, 2019 and wish to thank you for the contents therein.

“We are gratified that you have, in agreement with our view, confirmed our position. This discussion has to be a multi-stakeholder engagement, in furtherance of this, we have taken the liberty to request the National Peace Council to kindly exercise its statutory mandate and assume role of mediator in deliberations on disbandment of party vigilante groups, we hold ourselves ready to meet your good selves at any venue and date the National Peace Council may propose,” the statement said.