Undoubtedly, the upcoming Assin North by-election is going to be a testing ground for John Mahama’s ‘do or die’ mantra. My information indicates that rehearsals are being made in all the regions where hooligans will be bused to Assin North to executive the project to send a signal to the NPP that 2024 General Election will not be a child’s play.
To the NDC, Assin North is going to be a battleground of blood and iron affair. They mean to carry Mahama’s mantra to the letter. Don’t doubt my information because while I hover in the firmament as an angle and you tread on the ground as a mortal being so what I see is deferent from what you see.
Joseph Yamin, the National Organizer of the NDC who stays in Kumasi knows the trick of Kejetia pickpockets very well. He tried it at Kumawu but he failed. Yamin knows that when the Kumasi Kejetia pickpocket tries to pick money from someone’s pocket and he is identified, he is always the first to shout ‘thief, thief’ in other to distract onlookers.
Before people could realize that he was rather the thief, he would be gone. Yamin sounded the false alarm at Kumawu that the NPP had ordered truckload of arms and ammunition to cause trouble at Kumawu. It turned out that it was rather the NDC that armed their hooligans to invade Kumawu.
But for the vigilance of the security forces, Yamin would have succeeded in spilling blood at Kumawu. There is no difference between Yamin and the Kumasi Kejetia pickpocket. They are two of a kind.
The National Security, particularly Dr. Dampare and his team should be proactive. Waiting for the NDC hounds to strike before moving in is suicidal but surely not defense.
That is why the military believes preemptive strike is better than defending territories when they are attacked first. Just read the stories of Israel’s many wars against the Arabs and you will understand that if the Israelis had not adopted preemptive strikes at some nuclear facilities like those in Iraq and Syria, the state of Israel will not have been in existence today.
By now I expect underground plainclothes security officers in Assin North, trying to sniff trouble spots and the movement of arms. Prevention, they say is better than cure.
Mr. Mahama has already told us that the NDC comes from revolutionary roots and so when it comes to unleashing violence no one could beat them and that is true.
Did they not murder three former Heads of State and six top military officers? Did they not gruesomely murder three High Court Judges and a military Major? Did they not strip women naked in public and whipped them in between their thighs? Did they not line up respected chiefs in public and gave them ‘dirty’ slaps? Did they not cause the disappearance of two hundred and sixty eight full-blooded Ghanaians to be found no more? Did they not pierce the protruding stomachs of suspected rich men in public with bayonets?
So you see, if Mahama said they can unleash violence, he knows what he was talking about and if he says 2024 will be ‘do or die’ he knows what he has planned.
The sages say if a cripple says he will throw a stone at you, he might be sitting on one. The man is desperate for power and he will do everything to grab power, if even Rome should burn. And there are some poor good-for-nothing rubble-rousers who are ever ready to lay down their blood for the man to grab power and continue to live well with his wife and children. Look at how lavishly he splashed money during the NDC Presidential ‘cooked’ primaries.
But can the security agencies nip the threat of insecurity at Assin North in the bud alone? Each and everyone at Assin North should be his or her brother’s keeper. The security officers work on information so everyone should be on the lookout and report suspicious characters to the appropriate quarters for the collective security of all and sundry.
These blood thirsty people will not wait until the by-election is very near before they take arms to Assin North. Landlords and hotelkeepers should open their eyes wide and look out for suspicious characters.
My genuine fear as far as the Assin North by-election is concerned is not who wins or who loses the by-election at the end of the day. My fear is the possibility of violence which could spread to other parts of the country.
Such violence could also give licenses to both NPP and NDC to arm their members towards election 2024. That could also lead to the unthinkable. The civil war which claimed thousands of lives in the Ivory Coast started this way.
We are already in hard times and the government is working beyond exhaustion to calm the waters. If anything untoward happens, women, children the old men and women who cannot run for dear lives in particular will suffer.
As for the youth who are the trouble makers, they can easily dash into the forest and take cover when the guns start to boom.
I was at Telensi in the Upper East Region a few years ago when we had the by-election there. What I observed was that, the youth of Telensi were not those who were causing troubles and firing guns into the crowd. It was those supporters of the political parties who were bused from Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tamale, Bolgatanga, Bawku and elsewhere who were causing the mess.
The people of Assin North are predominately farmers who go about their duties peacefully. If they sit down for drugged and drunk hirelings to put sand into their gari, they will regret after the by-election.
What people must understand is that stray bullets kill easily more than guns aimed at individuals.
In fact, that is when you will realize how violence spreads quickly across the country like wild fire which may lead to a civil war. And have you lived in a country where there was a civil war before? I have and I will write about that later. Here in my holy village, I have so many places to hide in my farm when civil war breaks out in this country but as to how long I can hide there is the problem, particularly in this rainy season. Don’t laugh because it is a serious matter!!
Eric Bawah