The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says this is not the time to be engaged in cheap political stand as the nation puts together efforts to combat the violence by the Western Togoland secessionists group.
His comment comes on the back of the New Patriotic Party calling on all stakeholders to condemn the actions of the Western Togolander’s.
Speaking in an interview to declare the NDC’s position on the call by the NPP, Mr Ablakwa said the NPP was late.
“I think the NPP is 10 months late, on the 20th of November 2019, last year, I publicly condemned and denounced the activities of the secessionists. I made it clear that, we cannot be speaking about further disintegration of our republic and we should rather seek to perfect this union especially at the time that we are hosting the African Continental Free Trade Area, where, as pan Africanist, we have been at the fore front of exceeding continental African unity. We should be moving away from the relics of the Berlin conference where Africa was just shared amongst the imperialist.”
He further added that, a simple search by the NPP would have informed them on the stand of the NDC because, in January this year, the Volta region NDC addressed a press conference because of the matter in the volta region, where they publicly denounced and condemned the activities of these separatists.
“This yet another needless direction, you have the mandate, you have our resources, you are in charge of our national security architecture, the least we expect is for an insurgency to be taking place and an insurgency of this kind. This is no joke; this is not a matter that is to be politicized.”
He said, the NPP does not seem to appreciate the enormity of the danger that the nation was dealing with because this is a group that started with one formation called the homeland Study Group and now the groups are five.
He added that, the government had failed abysmally because it is its duty to protect the nation and also ensure safety.
He noted that, Papavi’s group, had issued a statement saying they were not part of the violent insurgence and do not know where the group was coming from.
“Now you have a situation where a radical wind has emerged. We are all living in fear. Never in the history of our constituency in our region has police stations been overpowered, where police station officers have been overpowered and rather put in cell, where suspects are freed and they are in prison. Never has armories been broken into and as we speak to you, a number of weapons, about 19 from Aveyime police station, 14 pump action guns are in the hands of wrong people, 2 riffle guns are missing in Mekpe, and the police commander who was leading a team of detachment to reinforce was also overpowered and all their weapons collected.”
He further said that the secessionist group was clearly made up of people who are well trained, who now have weapons adding that, government had “slept on the job” and the group is rather metamorphosing into a rather radical group, who are now perpetuating violence and engaging in most bloody invasions and insurgency that must worry us especially if we as a nation, has studied what has happened in countries like Algeria, Cameroon and the emergence of Boko haram and others.
He revealed that dead bodies are still being found, saying that there is a probability of more casualties.
