I Blame NPP For Oliver Barker-Vormawor & Co's Behavior - Kwesi Pratt

Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has blamed the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) over the behavior of the FixtheCountry conveners regarding their letter of request to the Ghana Police Service.

The conveners, writing to the Police, requested permit to embark on an "armed" demonstration on June 4th but their request as well as their demonstration has been turned down.

The group, in the letter, said "we will bring our own security company to provide protection to demonstrators. All weapons held by demonstrators or by the contracted security personal will be for personal protection only; and all weapons will be duly permitted in accordance with the Arms and Ammunitions Act, 1972 (NRCD 9) e) Proposed route and destination: We expect that the Demonstrators will gather at Circle".

"The procession will move from Circle to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, where the Protestors will make a demand a slot on GTV to speak directly to the Nation and lay out our grievances, in accordance with Article 55(11), which guarantees fair opportunity to Ghanaians to present their programmes to the public through equal access to the state-owned media", they added.

The Ghana Police Service has secured a court injunction against the intended demonstration.

“After hearing the application [on Friday, May 3], the Court granted an order to restrain the organisers, their agents, assigns and whoever is claiming through them from embarking on the armed demonstration as had been intended,” the Police said in a statement on Friday.

To Mr. Kwesi Pratt, the NPP cannot extricate themselves from blame if today a group has arisen and demanding to go on demonstration without Police protection.

According to him, the group's motivation to go for private security stems from the NPP's formation of its "Invisible Forces".

He referenced the members of the NPP justifying the activities of the Invisible Forces when people opposed the idea.

"I can't blame them alone. Let's be truthful. I remember when our comrades in the New Patriotic Party started the Invisible Forces and we spoke against it, what did they say? They said they have no confidence in the Police, so they want to protect themselves. Is this not the same thing that these people are saying? This 'we have no confidence in the Police', we heard it a long time; it's not just the FixtheCountry people saying it", he said.