Matters Arising From The Commission

The curtains have been drawn over the country's first ever effort at probing the infamy called vigilantism. The Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency bye-election being the last straw to break the camel's back in the series of bloody bye-elections to visit the country it provided us with the impetus to seek a way out of the political violence.

The distinguished personalities upon whom the President bestowed the task, did a fantastic job of listening and observing the demeanour of their guests patiently. They sieved the grains from the chaff and now as we await the outcome, there are a few yet critical observations we made which should inform our security management of future polls in this country.

We must be grateful to God that at last there is a general consensus that the cankerworm of vigilantism must make an exit from our body-politic because we have had enough of the nonsense.

Some politicians might find the aberration inuring to their short-term interests but the greater good which is the national interest does not approve of this. It is on this note that we proceed to say 'no' to the parochial interests of the bad politicians.

President Akufo-Addo allured to this in his independence anniversary speech in Tamale when he said that those who perpetrate political violence should not toy with us. He could not have said it better.

We are easily carried away by the excitement of bye-elections that the critical issue of security coordination has been shoved aside in the past many such electoral exercises.

From the narration of most of the security persons who turned up at the hearings, it was clear that their outfits acted independently of the other; the outcome of which was the picture which, after all, necessitated the President's intervention.

It is unacceptable that the Police Command whose jurisdiction was Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency did not know much about the other players on the security field. Besides that, it would appear that the paramilitary outfits whose personnel were drafted to the place operated outside a central command.

When the mayhem ensued therefore the confusion was overwhelming. The Inspector General Of Police and others said it all about the shortcomings of security management of the situation.

Security organizations suffer from a long-standing feature of each seeking to outdo the other and in the end mess up the whole show.

SWAT, National Security players, various units of the police, personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service and so on. Under such circumstance, the need for effective coordination should not be overlooked. Unfortunately that was what happened playing into the waiting hands of NDC whose apparatchiks were on the ground coordinating their covert operations.

We are confident that the Commission's recommendations, when they are eventually released and implemented, would ensure that coordination of security in especially bye-elections is done effectively in the future. This should also provide a template for use on the larger platform of general election bereft of hoodlums.