Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Kwesi Aning, has decried the use of violence as a tool to draw the attention of government officials to address the pertinent social needs of citizens.
According to the Professor, Ghana is currently experiencing a political credibility crisis where citizens have lost faith in politicians due to their failure to deliver on their mandate. As a result, they tend to resort to violence to get their plights addressed, which he said was unfortunate.
The Professor also intimated that citizens perceive violence as a legitimate tool to secure the attention of political actors, since they tend to respond quickly to their needs when force is applied.
“Politics has been hallowed out to such an extent that those who govern have lost the respect of those who are governed,” he said on Saturday, July 23, 2022, on Newsfile.
He also mentioned that politicians themselves have glorified violence and tend to respond quickly to threats of, and actual acts of violence, which sends the signal to citizens that through violent means they can quickly get responses to their problems.
“When the language of violence has a direct correlation to politicians listening – first coming to power and even the threat or actual use of violence leads to politicians, government acting, then the citizenry understands and perceive violence as a legitimate tool for getting political and developmental results and that’s unfortunate,” he added.
His comment was part of discussions on the incident which happened in Suame, when Majority Leader and MP for the Constituency was hooted at by residents over deplorable roads.
On Friday, July 15, 2022 some residents of the constituency mounted road blocks to protest the poor state of their roads. Some of the residents threw objects including sachet water at him.
“Away, away†the angry youth chanted.
Meanwhile, the MP has accused an NDC group in the community of instigating the youth against him.