A Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu has admonished that it is early days yet for the citizenry to shoot down plans by the government to formulate a law to end activities of political militias in the country.
He noted that the decision by the president might have numerous benefits hence, the citizenry is agitating to wait for the legislation to be passed before writing it off insisting “I disagree considering all the criticisms.
“This is how far the country has come to discuss the issue over a month, I should think before the president asks the Attorney-General to prepare legislation, it really might have been something good.”
“Those who think we have sufficient laws to deal with vigilantism are not entirely correct because there are loopholes in the law, just as we have rules on terrorist financing, we don’t have same on vigilantism.
“This is one area we need to tackle so far as we have not seen what the president and the Attorney-General are talking about, it’s premature to say it is not necessary since the phenomenon of political vigilantism has the potential of destabilising the country and reversing the democratic gains it has made over the years,” Mr Kpebu cautioned.
While the two main political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) continue to write open letters to each other following the president’s call on both parties to dialogue and fashion out a way to deal with the situation, political parties and other stakeholders have said that legislation will yield no positive results.
But the President who is unfazed about the concerns has instructed the Attorney-General to prepare a legislative instrument since some of the attacks had resulted in death and injuries on victims including innocent citizens.
The phenomenon of vigilantism has become a topical issue following a surge in acts of physical attacks and assaults carried out by members of vigilante groups aligned to the major political parties.
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice is on standby to lay before Parliament a legislation to disband all forms of political party vigilante groups and provide sanctions against the occurrence of party vigilantism which the president is obliged to issue a legislation against the practice, the move will not prejudice the expected dialogue between the NDC and the NPP on the matter. -citinewsroom.com