POLITICAL VIOLENCE; GENETICS OR INHERITANCE: A CASE OF THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY(NPP).

BY: NANA BOADAA

Political Violence has been described as the expression of physical force, in the form of aggression, cruelty, bloodshed or murder by citizens, or a group of people to achieve goals. According to Peterson and Richard Wrangham, in their theory on Apes, 'VIolence is inehrent in humans'. It always comes out of HATRED or GREED, and precedes by protests, agiations, demostrations and destructions. Politcal violence has not been uncommon in Ghanaian politics since the struggle for independence in the late 40s. Today when Ghana is being regarded as the citadel of democratic studies in Africa, political violence exists and persists. Is the violence in Ghanaian politics an inheritance from our political forefathers or genetically aquired from them..?

The birth of Kwame Nkrumah's CPP in 1949 disintergrated and collapsed the UGCC, when they could not survive the humiliating defeat to form a government. This brought hatred and animosity against Nkrumah and his followers, and confusion and division among the remnants of the defunct UGCC. Protests, agitations and violence became their tools against their common enemies. Peole were chased out , beaten and killed for the simple reason of being a CPP member, or adherent to Kwame Nkrumah. In Ashanti, women related to CPP members,. including the sister of Krobo Edusei were slaughtered and burried alive in the Subin Valley. And when the National Liberation Movement (NLM), the Asanti tribal political party was formed, the violence escalated throughout the Asanti towns and villages. Chiefs perceived to be CPP, and their people were not spared with violence. Kumawuhene and his subjects , including most immigrant farmers, had to seek refuge at the colony (accra).

The UGCC / NLM, which later metamorphosed to the DANQUA-BUSIA (UP, PP ,PFP,NPP), did not only continued their brute politics and physical attack, they also heightened it to a more sophisticated level of bombardment and explosions, after their opposition to the the Ghana's independence had been rejected by the Queen of England. Until the DANQUA-BUSIA finally succeeded in sponsoring the violent overthrow of Nkruma's CPP in 1966, and sending him and his family to the exile of his death, series of violence, in the form of bombing and kiiling were perpetrated against the CPP and her folowers, including innocent people. Major-General Barwah was butchered for his refusal to denounce Nkrumah, and a plot to assasinate President Nkruma was foiled, as he was about to embark on a state visit in 1958,. Arrests were made and the culprits were known. Two bombs exploded in July 1961, wrecking the front of Parliament House in Accra. Another explosion was recorded at the Flag Staff House soon after that, killing one person and maiming many others, as Nkrumah's Young Pioneers' Orchestra band was performing. In 1962, the Lucas House bombing was recorded in Accra when people were killed instantly with their intersines gushed out. That same day, a bomb explosion killed one person in Accra. In january 1963, a bomb designed to assassinate Nkrumah expoded at a CPP rally at Accra Stadium. More than 400 people were injured in this heartless act of violence. The never-to-be-forgotten Kulungugu massacre was also recorded, in Augist 1962, when Nkruma was returning from Burkina Faso. It killed several school childre who have lined up to see the president, and permanently maimed the flower girl.. Time and space would not allow me to tabulate the acts of violence, that the DANQUA-BUSIA unearthed against Kwame Nkrumah, in their greed and selfish quest for political power.

One wonders, why has it been the same crude and primitive violent methods employed by the DANQUAH-BUSIA to achieve their political goals. Is it in their genes, by way of chromosomes, or aquired by inheritance. The modern day NPP an offshoot of the UGCC / NLM /DANQUA-BUSIA, cannot expunge themselves from Violence , as a means of having their political voices heard, or achieving their selfish political goals. The NPP has chosen the uncivilised, primitive and historical violent means as their tools of politicking, the national consequences of it they dont care, as long as it satisfies their personal and political whims and caprice. The ensuing violent and deadly political incidence, since they took over from the DANQUA-BUSIA, would give a clue of judgement to the pro-democractic Ghanains, to see if the history of their forefathers is to be blamed . The military intervention that kicked the DANQUA-BUSIA out of power, and the series of revolutions afterwards that kept them in opposition for 30 years overpowered their bombing and destructive violence, even though few incidents of treason and sponsored coup's attemps and plots were uncovered during the AFRC / PNDC regimes. And in their struggle for political come back into the 4th republic, initiated and nurtured by the Rawlings' revolutions, they resorted into violece again , to the amazement of democratic Ghanaians. One had expected their arch political opponent, which is also an offshoot of a military revolution, to have been more violent, ironically, the magnitude of violence and murders by the NPP, since the inception of the 4th republic constitution, is unprecedented. In 1992, the NPP BURNT TO DEATH, the Effia Kwesimintim NDC constituency chairman, during the election that they later boycotted, as they could not stand the humiliating defeat awaiting them., and during the political campaign towards the 1996 election, they mob-beat to instant death, one Mr. Grukponi, an NDC supporter , at Old Tafo, in Kumasi. It is indeed tru that, violence flows through the blood lines if the DANUA-BUSIAA, and the recent killings of NDC supporters and destruction of their properties at Gushiegu is a case fresh on our minds, as Gushiegu township is still under curfew, over that violent actions of the NPP.

violence is inherence, and political violence comes out of hatred, else the NPP would not kill their own people, injure their own people, and destroy properties of their own people in a "common electoral primaries, as was witnessed by Ghanaians in the last election. out of 230 constituencies, over half of it witnessed agitations, violence, protests and killings, yet they called it DEMOCRACY. At Akropong-Akwapim , in the eastern region, one NPP delegate was murdered, and that was lnked to the party's General Secretary., while the cosntituency Chairman at Krowor , nmarrowly escaped lynching, as the police office in charged was beaten till he was blood-bathed.properties. Deadly violence erupted at Bekwai, in Ashanti region when Mr. Kofi Poku won the consituency primaries. At Pusiga, deadly fight ensued at the primaries between tow NPP factions, causing the destruction of the only Basic school in the area, and injuring many people.

The list of the attrocious violence , in the name of the the NPP could go on and on, but what Ghanaians want to know is whether this EMBODIMENT OF VIOLENCE IN THE NPP, WAS AQURED BY INHERITANCE, OR BY GENETICS

(kkingofkings@excite.com)