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The main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) of persecuting its members and silencing critics of government.
In what it describes as a return to the “dark days of culture of silence”, the NPP alleged that President John Dramani Mahama is acting as a “supreme leader”, abusing state power and targeting opposing voices with the support of security agencies.
At a press conference on Friday, September 19, the National Youth Organiser of the NPP, Salam Mustapha, pointed to recent arrests of high-profile party figures, including Ashanti Regional Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, social media personality Fante Comedy, and most recently the Bono Regional Chairman, Kwame Baffoe, widely known as Abronye DC.
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He contrasted these arrests with what he described as leniency towards NDC members, citing alleged threats and assaults against NPP leaders, including Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin and the party’s third Vice Chairman, Alhaji Osman Masawudu, who was allegedly attacked by NDC National Vice Chairman, Alhaji Awudu Sofo Azorka.
In his remarks, Salam Mustapha stated:
Ghana is a democracy and not an autocracy with a supreme leader. If you are elected with an overwhelming majority on the basis of lofty promises, it does not make you the supreme leader that we are seeing in John Dramani Mahama today. The culture of silence is coming back, the dreaded culture of silence that the antecedents of the NDC took us through in the dark days.
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He further warned that freedom of expression is under threat:
It is beginning to be reintroduced in Ghana. Today, people are getting scared to express themselves, to go on social media, to write, or to have conversations on TikTok, because the president has told us that they have technology to crack down on citizens.
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Salam Mustapha therefore called on Ghanaian youth to participate in the September 23 protest, describing it as a collective duty to resist what he called the growing tyranny of the current administration.