FEBRUARY 8

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DAILY HERITAGE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2019
03
Ayawaso by-election violence:
Victim to lose
leg or die
BY KWADWO ANIM
ONE OF the victims of
the recently held
Ayawaso West Wuogon
by-election violence
could have his right leg
amputated by doctors at the 37 Military
Hospital where he is receiving
treatment.
According to the doctors, amputation
of the badly damaged leg could
be the only way to keep him alive after
the serious injury he sustained.
The 37-year-old Ishahu Yaro and
five others were shot at close range
when masked and hooded armed men
said to be operatives of the National
Security stormed the La-Bawaleshie
residence of the opposition National
Democratic Congress candidate in
that by-election.
Yaro’s injured right leg
has been wrapped in a huge
white bandage with a shiny
metal fixed along the leg to
keep it straight and supported
with pillows because
the close-range shot scattered
the bones in his legs.
Doctors have warned
him that one of the options
to keep him alive is to have
his damaged leg severed.
Yaro, who is a footballer,
has already undergone two
separate surgeries to help
recover the leg and was expected
to go through a
third surgery yesterday.
His football career appears
to have come to a
sudden end due to the
damage to his leg.
The Minister in charge
of National Security, Mr
Bryan Acheampong, has
admitted he deployed the
masked and hooded armed
men, explaining that they
acted on intelligence to deal
with some “undesirable circumstances.”
The action by the security
officers has been
roundly condemned by a
large section of the public,
including civil society organisations,
with a call that
the perpetrators should be
identified and brought to
book.
President Nana Addo
Dankwa Akufo-Addo on
Wednesday, February 6,
2019, set up a Commission
of Inquiry chaired by former
CHRAJ boss, Justice
Emile Short, to investigate
the violence suffered by innocent
and helpless civilians.
• Ishahu Yaro must lose his leg or face death
Ban political parties with vigilante groups
BY PHILIP ANTOH
philip.antoh@dailyheritage.com.gh
THE INSTITUTE for Liberty and
Policy Innovation (ILAPI) is calling
on the Electoral Commission (EC) to
immediately ban all political parties
which patronise political vigilante
groups in the country.
According to ILAPI Ghana, “we
cannot sit down and allow politicians
and other beneficiaries of these political
vigilante groups to violate the
rights of ordinary Ghanaians all in
the name of voting.”
Speaking to the DAILY HER-
ITAGE yesterday in an interview,
the Executive Director of ILAPI, Mr
Peter Bismark Kwofie, said in other
jurisdictions, vigilante groups are mobilised
to protect their own communities.
• ILAPI Ghana to EC
“This becomes an everyday security.
However, in other parts of
Africa, political vigilante groups play
a key role in securing electoral victory
to enhance the party's electoral fortunes.”
Mr Kwofie said politicians came to
this level because of lack of trust in
the security services.
He said in recent times, vigilantism
appeared as a competitor to the
State’s security agencies in the pursuit
of public legitimacy.
He said the effect would lead to
coups d’état, insurrections, secessionist
movements, assassinations and
death squads, ultimately dislocating
the State’s sovereignty over a certain
population or territory.
• Mr Peter Bismark Kwofie, Executive
Director of ILAPI
“If this is not stopped immediately,
it would be the beginning of
our chaos and destabilisation in
Ghana. We can all see and feel the
danger it poses to our democracy,
looking at what happened in the justended
Ayawaso Wuogon by-election.”
What EC must do
The Executive Director said the
EC must sanction political parties
with vigilante groups because elections
are not organised by the political
parties but by the EC under
articles 43, 44, 45, 46 and 51 of the
1992 Constitution and Electoral
Commission Act 1993, Act 451.
“The EC must put up norms refraining
political parties from mobilising,
funding and arming these
electoral militants who pose as ballot
box protectors,” he stated.
Mr Kowfie said the violence
which erupted during the Ayawaso
West Wuogon by-election dented the
operations of the EC in organising a
free and fair election, though the
Commission had mentioned that the
incident occurred far from the 137
polling stations.
“Therefore, the EC has a reserved
right to exercise sanctions especially
when political party vigilante
groups’ mar the operations with violence.”
“A harsher sanction should be
meted out against political parties that
have created these vigilante groups.
Sanctions may include, reducing their
counted votes by a fixed percentage,
pay a fixed penalty unit and at the extreme,
ban them for a number of
years by revoking their license,”
ILAPI suggested.