A Coalition of Civil Society Organisation (CSOs) yesterday called on Ghanaians to mount pressure on the two political parties in the country to dissolve all vigilante groups that serve their interest.
According to them, all well meaning Ghanaians must prevail on the two major political parties to immediately dissolve and discontinue the formation and operation of illegal armed groups, commonly referred to as political vigilante groups.
The CSOs namely, Civic Forum Initiative (CFI), Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) made the appeal in a joint statement following recent violent attacks in the country.
The group particularly pointed to the violence that characterised the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency by-election and asked that the government and security agencies took concrete steps to ensure that the kind of violence that occurred did not spill over to future elections, and particularly 2020 election.
The Ghanaian Times shares in the sentiments expressed by the CSOs and adds its voice to the call for the immediate dissolution of all vigilante groups.
Although, this is not the first time that the call has been made for the vigilante groups to disband, we think that the call is in the right direction.
The activities of vigilante groups have become very scary and worrisome and therefore, any and every effort must be made to stop them now.
The impunity with which they operate put every citizen at risk and that is why the entire county must be outraged and force the political parties to disband them.
We commend the CSOs for taking the first step in calling for the ban and wish that other organisations such as faith based and traditional authorities would join hands with the CSOs to exert pressure on the parties.
We call on all political parties in whose name these vigilantes operate to disband them in order to stop them from causing further mayhem.
The police and other security agencies must now take up the challenge by demonstrating that they are on the side of the people by arresting and prosecuting the hoodlums.
The country must not wait any further for them to wreck more havoc on the citizens before they act.
Let’s disband the groups now!
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