Members of the Invincible Forces, the private security arm of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), are mainly floor cleaners and chair arrangers, Deputy General Secretary of the party, Nana Obiri Boahen, has said.

“For goodness sake, they (main opposition National Democratic Congress) should stop dragging the name of Invincible Forces into whatever is happening (seizure of cars and offices). Invincible Forces is a very formidable body in the NPP. These young men have helped the party a lot. They used to clean the floors for us, they used to arrange the chairs for us, they are not being paid, they have been around with the party. So it is only a daydreamer who will come out with the idea that we should disband the Invincible Forces. It’s not NPP as a party that set up the Invincible Forces, a conglomeration of young men [did],” Nana Obiri Boahen said in response to a call by the NDC that President Nana Akufo-Addo must ban the group.

The NDC, a day after the president presented his State of the Nation Address to parliament, at which he condemned all post-election violence, issued a statement asking Nana Akufo-Addo to “disband and demobilise his illegal vigilante group, the Invincible Forces, with immediate effect.”

The statement, signed by General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia on 22 February commended the president for condemning the lawlessness and violence perpetrated by some NPP members on NDC members, saying: “We intend to view this belated call by president Nana Akufo-Addo as a genuine effort on his part to rein in the rampaging and marauding members of his party and it is our expectation that his gesture will restore the peace Ghanaians enjoyed under the NDC.”

The party said the president must demonstrate his commitment to ensuring rule of law by disbanding the group but Nana Obiri Boahen told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Thursday that that can only be done “over my dead body”.

Speaking on the same programme at the same time, Deputy General Secretary of the NDC Mr Koku Anyidoho said “…Given that they (Invincible Forces) have been in existence since 1992, how come in 1993 when Prof Adu Boahen became the leader of the NPP we didn’t hear of the Invincible Forces? Then President Kufuor takes over as leader of the party, four years in opposition we didn’t hear anything about the Invincible Forces, eight years as the president of Ghana President Kufuor was, we heard nothing about this Invincible Forces.”

“Suddenly, somebody else takes over leadership of the NPP then we are hearing of Invincible Forces. They are moving around beating up their own party members. And in those days, the beating, manhandling and roughing up were limited to their own party members. Now the same person has become the president of the republic and they have moved their agenda notches higher up the ladder of brigandry and banditry …”