The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) together with the National Peace Council have agreed to draw a road map for the disbandment of political vigilantism.

The NDC, NPP and the National Peace Council held a 2-day meeting at the Peduase Lodge which ended today May 28, 2019.

They agreed on the following:

1. The National Peace Council with the support of Technical expert and with the input from the two political parties will present a working document on the road map for the considering of the parties taking into account the reports of the various stakeholders at the just ended dialogue for the eradication of politically related violence and this will be done within a period of 4 weeks.

2. The draft code of conduct designed by the National Peace Council will be considered as one of the deliverables in the presentation of the road maps.

The understanding is that the National Peace Council will select individuals from both parties to draft the road map.

There will also be a monitoring system to ensure that all the recommendations from the technical experts are being implemented.

Background

The latest event to trigger the call for the disbandment of political vigilantism came on the back of the Ayawaso by-elections.

There was chaos at Bawaleshie which resulted in a shooting incident and some 13 people sustaining injuries.

This chaos has been blamed on some masked men who are said to be civilian National Security operatives who stormed the area.

This prompted President Akufo-Addo to set up a Commission of Inquiry to probe the issue and after a month they made certain recommendations, one of such was to disband political vigilante groups.

The President even promised to exercise legislature to disband these groups if need be.

He then asked his party the NPP to meet with the NDC and find ways to disband these groups and talks have been ongoing for sometime now.

Some of the vigilante groups are the Azorka Boys, the Invisible forces and the Hawks.