Member of Parliament for North Tongu and ranking member on Committee on Foreign Affairs at Parliament of Ghana, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has expressed what he calls “the silver lining” in the arrest of the National Chairman of NDC, Mr. Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service – the justification to arrest any NPP member who says anything that bothers on security when next NDC takes over the Jubilee House.
On the face of it, it sounds scary that the member of parliament and a somewhat influential NDC member will say that but like he said: this new standard cannot be bad for our national politics if we reflect deeply.
When then-candidate Akufo-Addo said “all die be die” after a bloody by-election in Atiwa, the NDC and perhaps entire nation took him to the cleaners. In fact, the statement was the subject of a BBC Hardtalk interview Nana Addo had with Stephen Sackur but what did not happen, or at least to public knowledge, was a police CID investigations, invitation or arrest of Nana Addo.
Aside “all die be die”, several other NPP members have made controversial comments and the public took them on but none of them was ever arrested and Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa believes what the NPP is doing to the chairman of his party provides the justification to standardize the arrest of political opponents who make unguarded statements.
Whether that is a good thing for the country is yet to be seen.
The NDC, however, was in power when NPP firebrand, Kennedy Akompreko Agyapong was arrested for comments he made on radio. That incident means Okudzeto’s comments were not entirely accurate in its picture of politically motivated arrests.
