Dog Eat Dog And The Gun Culture

If you are a regular reader of this column, you may remember that about fifteen years ago, I wrote a piece about how the gun culture started in the United States (US) of America and its dangerous effect on the good people of America. Americans did not wake up one morning to see people with pistols in holsters hanging on their waists. It started like what is happening today in Ghana. People saw the need to arm themselves because of the behaviour of gangsters.

In the early forties and fifties, cowboys took the laws into their own hands and raided cattle ranches, making away with cattle belonging to some ranchers with impunity. Cattle ranchers who resisted were mown down by these marauding cowboys. When things went from bad to worse, cattle ranchers also armed themselves in anticipation of any attack by wayward cowboys. That was how the gun culture began in America and it has refused to go even in this 21^st Century.

Today in America, almost every household can boast of one gun or more to protect themselves against criminals. To the ordinary person in Ghana, America seems to be very far away from Ghana but in reality, in view of modern technology, coupled with Information Technology, America is behind our backyards.

The Rambo style of shooting of persons in Kumasi when the NDC had their meeting which led to the death of one person is similar to what has been happening in the US in recent times. I was not surprised when the attack took place because the whole thing was festering ever since Mr. Joseph Yammin lost the chairmanship race. Instead of Yammin to co-operate with the newly elected chairman, he chose to pitch his camp elsewhere and act as a self-appointed regional chairman of the party.

Ex-President Mahama must solely be blamed for what happened in Kumasi. He made the Hawks, the Azorka Boys, the NDC Taskforce and others to believe that the NDC had revolutionary roots and so they can unleash violence more than any other political party in this country. When he made that ungentlemanly and unfortunate statement, little did he know that he was calling on the members of his party to get ready and prepare for a showdown. The Kumasi tragedy was a rehearsal of bigger things to come. Thankfully, it was a dog-eat-dog fight.

That simple but serious statement made by the ex-president made the hoodlums to believe that they could do their worst and go scot-free. It has been nearly three weeks since the police declared twelve Hawks members wanted and we are yet to see any arrest of even a single vulture. When the Hawks were being inaugurated, Mr. Asiedu Nketia made everybody to understand that the NDC fully supported them and that the party would resource them to carry out any operation that they intended to embark on. Then the testing time came knocking on the doors of the NDC in Kumasi. The guns started booming and machetes were drawn when the NDC Taskforce and the Hawks locked horns. Sensing danger, the General, who was supposed to lead the battle, had to run away. As for Mr. Ofosu Ampofo, who displayed ammunition and AK 47 at their press conference during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election, he wet his pants out of fear. Who say man no dey? We have to thank God for small mercies. If the violence had been between NPP vigilante groups and that of the NDC, the bloodbath would have been worse.

Nana Akufo-Addo has given a Presidential Fiat to the two main political parties, NDC and NPP, to sit down and find ways to disband their vigilante groups and that is a good start. He has also served notice that if the two main political parties fail to fix the canker within a week, he will fix it as an executive president of Ghana and that too is welcome news. As the Commander–in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, he has the power to move troops, and if the time comes for the President to order his troops to deal with these vigilante groups decisively, I don't expect any block-headed person to fault the Commander-in-Chief for taking such drastic measures. After all, nobody can say enough warnings have not been served. If you think you are a member of any political vigilante group who has built muscles to face the soldiers, you will come to realize that the Abongo Boys know how to deal with criminals. It is acceptable to kill more than one hundred members of vigilante groups for us to get our peace than to sit down for such miscreants to set the country ablaze and thereafter, run away to hide in neighbouring countries.

Listening to Colonel Opoku of the National Security Council during one of the sittings of the Justice Emile Short Commission of Enquiry, I feared for this nation. If hoodlums who were armed could be transported from Tamale, Kumasi and elsewhere to come down to Accra to cause trouble just because of a by-election, then I do not know what will happen when we have a general election where the stakes will surely be very high. Ghanaians must be thankful to the President for setting up this commission, because it will go a long way to bring to rest the issue of vigilantism and militia. Politicians have nothing to lose anytime political vigilantes go on the rampage. They do not vent their anger on their paymasters but we the poor folks who simply want to have a say in the governance of this country since we are also stakeholders. When the shooting went on in Kumasi, the guns were not pointed at Asiedu Nketia or Ofosu Ampofo but poor folks who received something small to act for these politicians. Do you think my son who is schooling in far away France will have time to pull a gun at a fellow Ghanaian just because of politics? The answer is NO because he has a future and he is focused. In fact, he has a noble family name to protect.

What makes me very sad is that names of members of the Hawks that were mentioned at the Kumasi shootings were all Muslim names and people from the north. It is the buffalo who said that it is unfortunate that even though he and the cow are brothers, it saddens him to see the cow being pulled by small boys to the slaughter house to be killed. Not even the most courageous hunter can put a rope around the neck of the buffalo and pull it. You dare not even go near it, not to talk of putting a rope round its neck. Anka wo be te boborlibobo!

Only illiterate hoodlums from the Zongos who have nothing to do can easily be employed by politicians to embark on such foolishness. Go to our universities and see young men and women from our Zongos pursuing courses which will benefit them in future. You sit in your shanty rooms in the poor Zongo communities, and instead of finding something better to do to improve your standard of living, you follow politicians to kill people. Yours sincerely is a Zongo boy and I know the poverty there so anytime I hear my brothers fooling around it pains me a lot. The current government has established a ministry for the Zongos and inner cities. Dams are being constructed in the northern regions so that the people there can embark on an all-year-round farming.

If you don't seize the opportunity to go there and get involved in the cultivation of one crop or the other and sit in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, etc. and call yourself a vigilante, before you could say Jack Robin, age will not be on your side and you will become a useless man and a burden to your family. I know some young men in the Northern Region who are engaged in tomato farming and they are rich. Some of them are riding flashy cars and life is good for them. These days, women who used to travel all the way to Burkina Faso to buy tomatoes stop over in the Northern Region to buy the stuff because the quality is the same.

Enter The Incompetent One

If you ever had the idea that Mr. John Mahama will not win the flagbearership race of the NDC, then you were living in Mars. It was boldly written on the wall and you didn't need a Daniel to interpret it to you. The national chairman, the national organizer, the general secretary, the women organizer, the deputy women organizer and in fact all who matter in the NDC and their parliamentarians threw their weight behind Mahama. Apart from the fact that he was the richest among the other six candidates, he could also boast of logistics which his other contestants could not match. So at the end of the day, he won with the 'incompetent' tag still hanging on his neck.

Addressing the party faithful after he had been declared the winner, he said something which was blasphemous to me. If he had made that statement in Iran, the Ayatollah would have declared a Fatwa on him and he would have nowhere to hide. Hear him: “Nothing, absolutely nothing can stop the NDC from marching to the Flagstaff House”. Oh, so not even God can stop the NDC from winning the 2020 general elections? In the run-up to the 2016 general elections, he pointed his finger to the sky in Kumasi and said only God ordains kings and that he had been ordained by God. And when God ordained Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to become the king, Mr. Mahama started growing lean. If our thumbs cannot stop him absolutely nothing cannot stop him from marching to the Flagstaff House to become the president again, in order to continue the mess he created. Ghanaians know the Almighty God! He who keeps Israel will stop him. The battle is still the Lord's. Help me say AMEN!!!

Eric Bawah