Security Analyst, Dr. Kwesi Aning is apprehensive another by-election held anywhere in the country will trigger much roughness than experienced in the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency.

He says irrespective of the recommendations to be made by the three-member commission of inquiry, the incidence of thuggery sponsored by political groups will continue.

Dr Aning believes such chaos will fester given the increasing rate at which vigilante groups are springing up among political parties across the country.

Masked men dressed in National Security uniform stormed the residence of the candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Kwasi Brempong, during the January 31 by-election in the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency. 

They attacked his supporters including Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Samuel George and fired guns which led to many people getting injured with others maimed. The act has been widely condemned by civil society organisations as well as international bodies like the UNDP.

The government subsequently instituted the Emile Short Commission and tasked it among others, “submit within one month its report to the President giving reasons for its findings and recommendations, including appropriate sanctions, if any.”

Read also: Emile Short, 2 others to investigate Ayawaso West Wuogon violence

Former Commissioner for the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Francis Emile Short, chairs the Commission

However, Dr. Aning who is also Director at the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research (FAAR) at the Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) does not expect a de-escalation of thuggery and the associated violence in Ghanaian politics.

“Come another by-election post the report of this commission, the violence we will see will be three times worse than Ayawaso,” he declared on Newsfile, Saturday and went further to bet with his Ph.D. certificate.

“This is an informal opposition that is beginning to threaten the [then] formal opposition group [NPP] who recruited them,” he told host, Samson Lardy Anyenini.

 

The expert said, “What Ayawso showed us, is those who masqueraded as ‘kaakamotobis’ [masked men] with earrings, with gold chains, with bandanas and masked as if they were starring in Starwars and calling them security…”

These groups he explained, operate with the “deliberate manipulative process first to infiltrate, to hijack and to radicalise” and are “beginning to become an informal opposition.”