Adam Bonaa,
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Security Warehouse, has observed that a
mediation team from the sub-regional comity of nations, Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) should mediate the process because “if the two
parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC)
are made to dialogue alone, the situation will degenerate further”.
He explained that “they will box each other
before they come out, ECOWAS is best fit to mediate the dialogue, let us bring
someone from ECOWAS to mediate the process not the two political parties alone
since the NPP and the NDC from the beginning of the fourth republic, have
garnered 95 per cent or more of the votes and can dialogue on the matter.
“The state
should set up a police-military taskforce against party militia, this taskforce
should be answerable to an ECOWAS mediator and not the executive arm of the
government and should be on standby to quell any disturbances from the illegal
militia groups.
“The mediator will be supervising the work of
the joint taskforce and should address the public directly on their operations
to keep confidence in the process with others coming in to help, since the NPP
and NDC signed a peace accord sometime back to disband the groups but it didn’t
work,” insisting that “the two parties cannot solve the menace”.
President Nana
Akufo-Addo’s proposal for only the two major political parties in Ghana to
dialogue on disbanding militia groups affiliated to their respective parties
has been challenged, this time by a security expert.
President Akufo-Addo in his State of the Nation
Address in February appealed to the NPP and the NDC to meet and dialogue to
disband their militia groups.
Following that, the NDC Chairman, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo wrote to the President suggesting that the Chairman of the National Peace Council should mediate the dialogue.
The NDC’s letter added that other political parties, civil society and the media as well as international peace bodies join the dialogue but the president dismissed the suggestion, saying that he sees no basis for it.
In his speech at the 62nd Independence Day anniversary, he repeated his stance that the two parties must dialogue alone.
– myjoyonline.com