Whatsup News has intercepted a series of letters from the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) showing that it was indeed systematically training a group of “Thugs” for election 2020.
A May 12, 2019 letter written on the letterhead of the NPP and signed by the National Organiser of the party, Sammy Awuku, clearly stated the agenda to train party militia purposely for election 2020. The letter was addressed to the National Security Minister, Albert Kan-Dapaah and copied to the Interior, Defense and the Minister of State In Charge of National Security.
“It has become necessary going into the 2020 elections to put in place as a party in power, a Special Security Task Force Unit aside the State security to counter any form of intimidation or harassment from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC),” Sammy Awuku wrote in the letter titled: Training of special task force for 2020 elections.
It continued: “This task force must have a rigorous training in election-related conflicts…In view of this, we the National Executive of the party have resolved that the party’s private security, particularly, members of the defunct Invisible Forces and Delta Force be made part of the ongoing training at Asutuare by the National Security Secretariat.”
This letter, if authenticated, will totally obliterate the earlier denial by the Akufo Addo administration that the rag-tag group of men seen in pictures and videos undergoing rigorous military training at Asutuare were not members of its dreaded militia group.
This letter is an echo of an earlier letter written on January 28, 2019 by Capt. (Rtd) Simon Ansu Tengabo to all NPP Constituency Chairmen to submit names of party thugs to be conscripted as “Election 2020 Security Team”.
The Tengabo letter recommended that a leader of the party’s militia in all the constituencies plus ten others should be trained in such a way that they can come back to train polling station agents.
However, Government spokespersons, including unofficial mouthpieces like Abdul Malik Kweku Baako have vehemently denied any link of the recruits at Asutuare to the Invisible and Delta Forces of the NPP. They claim these men were regular recruits into the National Security, and that they would be deployed to places such as the ports at Tema, Takoradi and the Airport.
Deputy Defence Minister, Major (Rtd) Derek Oduro, had said nothing of that nature was ongoing at the training camp and that there was no way the Ghana Armed Forces will agree to such a scheme.
“That is baseless, it has no substance. The Ghana Armed Forces does not accept any political party in any of its military barracks or camps.
In the letter signed by Sammy Awuku for the NPP General Secretary, John Boadu, the NPP rationalised that it needed this loyal militia to be trained in combat because the party’s intelligence gathering shows that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) was also recruiting militia groups for the 2020 election.
“The NDC, our intelligence indicates is recruiting people to cause disorder before, during and after the elections, following what happened at the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections. We know for a fact that the NDC is not ready to accept defeat, and will therefore do anything to destabilise the country which we must not allow to happen,” the letter concluded.
This potentially explosive time bomb for the 2020 elections is coming in the heels of recent commitment expressed by the two main political parties: the NPP and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to disband all their militia/Vigilante groups.
Indeed, the Ghanaian Parliament in July passed the Vigilantism and Related Offences Bill, 2019 into law and it is currently awaiting Presidential assent.
The law will give legal backing for the disbanding of political party vigilante groups and forbid acts of vigilantism in the country, following the continuous violence that has characterised the country’s, such as by-elections in Ayawaso West Wuogon, Atiwa, Akwatia, Chereponi, Talensi, Amenfi West and more.
The two main parties have accused each other of paying lip-service to the disbanding of their vigilante groups. For instance, while the discussion for disbanding their vigilantes were ongoing, Joy FM’s undercover investigation revealed how the ruling party was sponsoring and housing a militia group called De-Eye Group at the former Presidential Palace in Osu.
Recently, the violence unleashed by a group of party vigilantes attached to the National Security agency prompted President Akufo Addo to institute a commission of enquiry headed retired judge and renowned human rights advocate, Justice Emile Short.
The report of the Short Commission made a number of recommendations, including strict punishment to those responsible for the violence in Ayawaso. However, the Akufo Addo administration issued a White Paper that rubbished about 53% of these recommendations.