“Dumsor is back,” the minority in Parliament declared on Thursday May 21, 2026 as it accused the government of using state security agencies to intimidate critics speaking out over renewed power outages across the country.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament after the house reconvened from recess, deputy minority leader and Asokwa MP, Patricia Appiagyei, alleged that members and supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) were arrested not for violent acts or criminal activity, but for expressing political opinions.
According to her, the arrest of a party organizer of the NPP was a means of intimidation. “A party organizer was seized by masked, heavily armed CID and BNI officers for posting a Facebook image of the president with the caption, ‘Dumsor is back.’ That is what it took to bring the full apparatus of state security to a citizen’s door,” Patricia Appiagyei told Parliament.
She described the arrests as an attack on freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution and warned that Ghana’s democracy risks moving backwards if citizens are targeted for expressing dissenting political views.
Quoting a lawyer involved in the case, she said, “What makes the statement false? Anybody who says Dumsor is not back is living in a cuckoo land.”
The Deputy Minority Leader also referenced comments by minority leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who reportedly described the incidents as “an endless assault on the fundamental rights of NPP officers and supporters.”
She argued that the use of security agencies against critics sets a dangerous precedent.
“Any government that deploys security forces against citizens for political opinion has lost its democratic bearing. Today, it is the NPP. Tomorrow, it could be anyone who dares to disagree,” she stated.
Patricia Appiagyei called on the Inspector General of Police and the CID Director-General to review all such arrests and release individuals being detained without sufficient legal justification. She also appealed to the attorney general and minister for justice to ensure security agencies remain neutral and uphold constitutional freedoms.
The minority also maintained that dumsor is back despite promises by the government to end the persistent power crisis, claiming several communities are once again experiencing prolonged and unpredictable outages.
