One ugly thing that happens in this country whenever a new party comes to power is the unlawful seizures of some public properties by members of the ruling party erroneously believing that winning power means they get to do whatever they like.

These activities are nothing but acts of vandalism which ought to be condemned, and yet here we have a ruling party’s senior official justifying the acts.

Freddy Blay, speaking to Ghanaweb on the seizures of some state buildings by NPP members, said they were simply ‘protecting’ the properties.

“In some cases, particularly places like the harbour, DVLA, Peduase Lodge, polling station’s and so forth, in some cases the people had to go there to protect state property to ensure that looting stops,” the NPP’s acting Chairman said.

“I’ve been told that in some public offices and so forth, all of a sudden those who were working there have refused to come to work, not because they are being intimidated or being chased out, but they themselves have suspected that because of how they came there, or purely based on they being members of the party then in power, some people will chase them out and they’ve left those public places to the wind, to the weather and people have gone there to protect it.”

He added: “At the harbour people are stealing cars, people are carrying away items that should attract duties and so forth, containers being taken away without going through the right processes and so forth and I think people should be bold enough to say: stop what you are doing.

“It is your duty, my duty to stop anybody stealing even an individual property if you have good reason to know that what the person is doing amounts to stealing. If you see people stealing cars from the harbour, taking them away, are you suggesting that we should wait and go and call the police before they stop them?” he rhetorically asked.