The Yagaba and Tema incidents in which unruly persons with links to the NDC went on rampage and destroyed properties of value, point at the readiness of the opposition to live up to its billing of violence.
There could be as we pointed out earlier, pockets of unruliness on December 7, but these would not be beyond the police and the military to quash.
The sponsors of the destruction only rehearsed what they intend doing on Election Day, for which the police and the supporting security agencies should be forearmed.
In the case of the Tema incident, we are surprised that the hoodlums were able to complete their mission of destruction with relative ease. Their arrests came much later and that is worrying. For a location like Tema, a ‘Police Region’ with the necessary policing logistics, we would have expected a better response than we saw later.
In the Yagaba case on the other hand, being a relatively new region with logistical challenges as we have learnt, the slow response and the absence of the necessary swiftness is understandable.
With what unfolded at Tema, we are confident that the police in the region would have learnt their lessons and better primed to respond to future emergencies.
There is no denying the fact that making it impossible to hold the December 7 elections is the aim of desperate politicians.
We are dealing with politicians whose proclivity to violence is household knowledge, but our resolve as a people to uphold the tenets of our democracy is unshakeable.
The security agents especially the police have been amply notified about the intention of the bad politicians, their modus operandi clearly noticeable.
There are illegal firearms in the possession of land guards who have found in the elections an opportunity to shift occupation.
Although our confidence in the police has not waned, we demand a better response to the hoodlums who could try various tricks on December 7.
The rapid response squads should really be swift in attending to emergencies with the alacrity needed to stop them.
The myriad pronged approaches the NDC is adopting for the December 7 elections as part of their Chairman’s ‘covert’ and ‘overt’ operations have been well amplified.
In the past few days, the story of the doctored video has done sufficient damage to the integrity of the NDC. They are wounded and would pull more arrows from their quaver.
How suspects involved in election crimes are dealt with by the police in terms of prosecution will serve as crucial deterrents.
We wish to reiterate the fact that terming some crimes as political and therefore abandoning them midstream by the police does not help in building a decent society.