‘BEAT THEM’ NDC incites party youth against NPP

STORY: FROM JAMES APPIAKORANG JR., KUMASI, A/R

A constituency youth organiser of the governing National Democratic Congress in Bantama in the Ashanti Region has incited members of his party, especially the youth, to ‘beat’ members of the opposition New Patriotic Party who challenge them on any issue.

“If NPP supporters meet you and ask you what you have achieved since the NDC came to power, and you are unable to give them an appropriate answer then it’s up to you! Because if for nothing at all you can beat them and if the police arrest you we shall ask for your release and you will be set free,” he stated in Twi dialect amid thunderous applause.

Hamza Abugri made the inciting statement while addressing members of the Komfo Anokye Nurses and Midwifery College branch of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), a youth wing of the NDC, on the successes chalked by the Mills government in the health sector.

Hamza Abugri urged the TEIN members of his party to, without fear, ‘beat’ any NPP supporter who dares challenge them on any issue, since, according to him, their party was in power.

“Even if you (TEIN members) have received nothing at all from the Mills administration, you should be mindful that the NDC was in power and therefore had control over all the state apparatus,” he told the TEIN members.
Expressing surprise at some NDC members’ inability to challenge NPP supporters regarding what the Mills government has achieved since it took over from the Kufuor administration,
Hamza Abugri said the fact that their party [NDC] was in power alone meant they can do anything [“in contravention with the law”] and get away with it.

A former Ashanti Regional Minister of the NDC, Kofi Opoku Manu, also made a similar statement at the Kumasi Prempeh Assembly Hall two years ago when he urged NDC supporters to slap anybody who dared challenge them on any issue.
Even though he received a huge bashing for inciting his party members, the youthful Hamza Abugri does not seem to have learnt any lesson from the ripples of the former minister’s violent statement.

When approached later by this reporter for clarification, Hamza stated categorically that, that was the only way to show someone what you have benefited from your party which was in government.

“I am not inciting anybody; all I was telling them was to make them know that benefits of your party coming to power come in various forms; and that can be one of them,” he sought to explain.

The Bantama organiser also seized the opportunity to reaffirm his party’s resolve to ensure that Ashantis do not vote twice in 2012 as, he said, was the case during the 2008 election.