Mustapha Gbandi
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has started a new wave of campaign to get its supporters to arm themselves during the 2024 general elections.
It follows a suggestion by the party’s Deputy General Secretary, Mustapha Gbandi to the leadership of party to get their members to take measures to arm themselves on election day.
Speaking in an interview on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia morning show hosted by Kwame Nkrumah Tikese a day after the just-ended district assembly elections in Twi with same translated into English, he said, “I have told our leaders that if it will be okay, lets prepare twice the NPP and wait for them; when you are going to the polling station, put a cutlass in your pocket. That one nobody can misbehave towards you.”
This came as a surprise to the host, but Gbandi insisted “the way to go [in the 2024 elections] is violence.”
When asked by the host if what he is advocating for was not dangerous considering his position as Deputy General Secretary of the largest opposition political party in the country, this is what he had to say: “if our leaders are going to help me, no one will misbehave.”
When asked what elections had to do with guns and machetes, he asked whether the Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alex Afenyo-Markin walks with soldiers because he is in Israel or Hamas territory, asking rhetorically whether those killed during the 2020 elections in Techiman South was because of the Israel and Hamas war or Russia and Ukraine war.
Not even the promptings of the host to the fact that ‘crime is a crime’ would deter him, since according to him “that is why we have to prepare; make sure you are not killed.”
“So that is why when you are going, you have to put a machete on you and go to the polling station quietly because your vote must be protected,” he insisted.
Gbandi was not willing and ready to accept the suggestion by the host that some of those incidents could be due to security lapses, insisting they are deliberate and thus noted, “Dampare [referring to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) should stop doing PR and do the work because nobody will sleep in 2024.”
“You cannot say that a security officer who understands threat analysis will fail,” he insisted whilst asking rhetorically “when they go to arrest armed robbers do they fail?”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu