The General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu says he is a beneficiary of party militias.
"I in person I am a beneficiary of this; I remember in 2016, there was a re-registration exercise and a day before I had heard of a lot of challenges therefore as the then acting General Secretary, I decided to visit the area . . . on my way; I normally drive alone but for whatever reason when I got to Kumasi I decided for some of our young men to join to visit those areas. At one polling station; this gentleman calling himself Naaba arrived with his men holding machetes and introduced himself to me as the brother of Collins Dauda (Member of Parliament for Asutifi South), and threatened to deal with me. Had it not been these boys with me, it would have been a different story . . . If I had not had the services of these young men with me, it would have been catastrophic," he said when he appeared before the Commission of Inquiry, Monday.
The canker of vigilantism has been one of the topical issues in the country with several groups and individuals calling on government for its disbandment.
The two political parties; the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the NPP have been blamed for its growth.
However, John Boadu says the political parties don't own the vigilante groups and that "…these are party members who occasionally provide support for the party, and I think we need to understand how these things work..."
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