Some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Ashanti Region have started beating war drums, revealing that the ruling party has a stockpile of deadly weapons, particularly sharpened cutlasses, to deal ruthlessly with political opponents in this year’s elections.
“We will cut people into pieces and assign them a place with the dead with our already sharpened cutlasses,” Robert Owusu Tilton, former NDC youth organiser for the Fomena constituency, stated on radio.
In a naked propaganda about fictitious ‘NPP aggression and violence’ intended to intimidate the Electoral Commission (EC), the NDC man declared on Boss Fm – a Kumasi-based radio station – that his party was ready to tackle any aggression that could wipe out lives on earth in respect of the general election.
He was reacting to comment by the General Secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Nii Armah Akomfrah, that the nation should not go to the polls with divided opinion on the voter register since it could form the basis for any of the political parties to reject the outcome.
The “NPP aggression and violence” appeared to be the NDC members’ meme of the day as another panellist from the NDC stock, Alex Asafo Adjei – an aid to the Ashanti Regional Minister – also repeated it while defending the assertion of his colleague, Robert Owusu Tilton.
Listeners of the radio station lost count of how many times the phrase popped up in the discussion on the morning show programme, partly devoted to the rejection of a new voter register by the EC.
The NDC activists managed to drum in the theme of “NPP aggression and intended violence” relentlessly to justify the comment on cutting people into pieces, recounting some putative statements by leaders of the NPP in the past.
It is not uncommon to come across such beating of war drums by members of political parties in election year; but it would perhaps be unwise to dismiss this one as sheer bluster in the face of arms and ammunition discoveries in the country in the latter part of last year.
The police in Kumasi during the period, discovered a cache of arms and ammunition at Alabar, a suburb of the metropolis, where a Burkinabe – suspected to be arms dealer – had stockpiled deadly weapons, including anti-aircraft rifle.
While the nation was grappling with the situation, the police again seized another huge consignment of bullets at Aflao in the Volta Region.
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