Land guards can now count on working for politicians when elections are due. Having four more years before getting something to do at collation centres, the recent Council of State Elections in Kumasi offered some of them something to do.
They succeeded in disrupting the polls in the Garden City.
Eventually and thankfully, the vexed polls were held and a winner declared to the pleasure of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Council of State polls, also an important segment of our democracy, takes place with only a few persons knowing about it.
Unfortunately, the one under review took a nasty turn, with journalists covering it suffering bloodied noses.
The thugs did their work and received their dues from those who engaged them.
If advisors to the state, specifically the President, must endure such trauma during their elections, then asking that the rules underpinning them be rethought would not be out of place.
One big lesson to be learnt from the Kumasi occurrence is that future polls in this country call for critical security planning.
With advisors to the President joining politicians in engaging thugs for elections, the country’s security cannot be said to be in good state.
Taking any level of elections for granted and therefore leaving things to chance can cause the country her hard-earned security when we least expected this to happen.
The next general elections might be a long way from now, but considering the fallouts from a poorly managed polls should prick us to start doing things to obviate bloody consequences.
Thugs who partook in the December polls of last year and lately the Council of State elections have now been emboldened for future enterprises. None of them has been prosecuted, and that gives them the assurance that with the politicians behind them, they are covered.
As we have stated over time, when politicians and their accessories, thugs, are emboldened to breach public order and other related laws intended to stop us from importing the jungle into our societies, then we are doomed.
It is worrying to observe that, to date, there has neither any instance of arrest nor prosecution of infringers of public order in relation to both the December 7 and the Kumasi Council of State elections.
If those who have been bestowed with the onerous task of managing the affairs of this country mean well for the citizens through an election, then they must wake up from their slumber and reverse the trend.
If we have survived previous breaches and almost coming close to the precipice, we might not be lucky next time. Therein lies the reason we must do all that we can to ensure responsible conduct and to allow the rule of law and not men to hold sway in our affairs.
Law enforcement agents, when they start exhibiting traits of weakness as we have observed in the past few years, only give criminals who are at the beck and call of bad politicians a perilous sense of invincibility. This is not how to build a better society.
We have only one country, Ghana, and all must join hands in protecting her from the evil machinations of selfish politicians and hooligans.