Contrary to perception that he might have regretted his action, Nana Akufo-Addo said that was far from the truth, insisting that in the face of intimidation from the NPP’s political opponents, they could only ward off aggressors by letting them know that they were ready for them.
Speaking for the second time on a radio station in the past two days, ahead of the party’s parliamentary primaries across the country, the NPP flagbearer, an astute politician/lawyer, told Peace FM’s Kokrookoo programme yesterday that ‘All die be die’, which has become a term used by workers agitating for improved conditions of service, was to encourage NPP supporters to ward off intimidation from National Democratic Congress (NDC) activists who employ rough tactics during polls.
The encouragement was necessary at this point, he said, as the country inched towards the 2012 elections, recalling that the by-elections which took place in the past year were fraught with violent developments, which the state security apparatus took no action against till date.
Perpetrators of the acts, Nana Addo pointed out, have not been apprehended by security agents, adding that the security shortcomings underscored the need for NPP supporters and members to stand the ground in defending themselves and their political beliefs.
The ‘all die be die’ refrain, when he uttered it during an interaction with party supporters in Koforidua in the Eastern Region, was particularly given motley slants to portray the flag-bearer as someone with a sinister agenda.
The slanted interpretations which followed prompted equally ferocious interventions from the NPP camp and an eventual adoption of ‘all die be die’ as an unofficial party slogan, to the chagrin of their opponents.
Nana Addo said since he made the statement, no bone had been broken and that no NPP member had attacked anybody, warning that if they were attacked, they were ready to retaliate.
The subject was not mentioned during his previous radio interview on Oman FM and so when the host of Kokroko, Kwame Sefa-Kayi broached it, the swift and defensive response by the eloquent politician offered listeners another opportunity to analyse once more ‘all die be die’, given the wide reach of the network.
He was not charitable to the security agencies when he pointed out that there had been many instances where people who committed various crimes went scot free because of their affiliation to the ruling party.
Such instances and realities, he said, informed his exhortation of NPP supporters to defend their positions when they came under the attack of NDC activists during the 2012 elections.
He insisted that every Ghanaian who committed a crime should face the law, regardless of their political affiliations.
Still on the law, he told his host that the rule of law should be allowed to function in the country and judges spared what he regarded as attempts at determining the course of justice.
This, he said, was necessary as far as the country had chosen the path of democracy.
Judges, he said, should be allowed to dispense justice devoid of queries, adding that he was satisfied with judgments by members of the bench, in as much as they were in consonance with the law.
‘I’m more concerned with casting aspersions at the judiciary and sometimes at judges and attempts to politicize their rulings,’ he said.
Ghana did not need a situation where a president or minister would seek to determine which way a case should follow to suit their whims, he said.
The foregone was his reaction to the recent ruling which freed a number of persons arrested over the murder of Ya Na Yakubu Andani II and the politics which greeted it.
Nana Akufo-Addo appears to be primed for a number of radio station interviews this week, ahead of his party’s landmark elections to select parliamentary candidates tomorrow through an expanded Electoral College, unprecedented in the political history of the country.
The flag-bearer is scheduled to speak on Joy Fm this morning.
By A.R. Gomda
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