THE NATIONAL Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) has held discussions with staff and leadership of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
The discussion, which focused mainly on vigilantism and indiscipline in the country, saw both institutions share ideas and propose strategies to curb the menace.
Deputy Chairman in charge of Finance & Administration, NCCE, Kathlyn Addy, in her address, stated that vigilantism in the country was growing at a fast rate and that proper action needed to be taken immediately.
“The problem is that, because its growing, we have to be concerned. The fact that the incidents are becoming more and are expanding to the post election period is a source of great worry for all of us,” she remarked.
Tracing the root of vigilantism, she said “vigilantism has been there right at the beginning of the fourth republic.”
Snatching of the ballot boxes and deployment of party thugs to perpetrate violence at election areas were all signs of vigilantism in the early days of the fourth republic.
She lamented that little or nothing is being done about the menace and its effects on the development of the nation, saying it should be resisted.
“It’s as if we have accepted and normalized that as part of our society. We cannot accept it; we cannot normalize it and we cannot pretend it is okay,” she stressed.
“This growing threat is a threat to all. We cannot sit for the next vigilante related incident to happen before we take action,” she added.
On indiscipline, she disclosed that beyond political thuggery, there is a general feeling of indiscipline in our society with ordinary citizens breaking the law with impunity.
She also lamented on the incidence of property owners renting their apartments to foreigners without checking their particulars.
“We actually have a law enforcement problem, because people can get away with all kinds of things; others are not deterred from repeating same,” she bemoaned.
On their part, personnel from GIS stressed that there is a thin line between indiscipline and vigilantism.
They disclosed that the politicians engage the ordinary citizens to perpetrate nefarious activities in the country and charged the NCCE to start and advance certain campaigns that would aid them deliver on their mandate since they are limited in such respect.
On how to curb indiscipline, they proposed civic education be made compulsory right from the basic level of education.
“The level of ignorance in our communities is very high. Civic education should become compulsory from basic school. Until we get that done, we are going to get it wrong,” an officer said.
Another officer remarked that the NCCE “should provide serious education to political actors.”
Laws should be changed to allow security agencies to be independent and work objectively.
Some officers revealed that the Immigration Service is under resourced and that affects their performance, claiming GIS has the least number of vehicles among all the security agencies.
“We have a big problem. The problem is logistics and resources. We have recruited so many people in the country but we are not resourcing them,” an officer lamented.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio