Diminishing confidence in the Ghana Police Service

For every society and by extension individuals to develop, one important ingredient that cannot be grossed, is security either perceived or real. For the most part, this aspect of human development is entrenched as one of the fundamental human rights and is entrusted to a group of people who are more often than not catered for by all and sundry through taxation. In Ghana, the Ghana Police Service is given this responsibility of ensuring the safety of all persons living within the territory marked as Ghana. From this premise and expectation, it is therefore no surprise that their motto is 'Service with integrity'. Sadly, many people in Ghana today are disillusioned about the output and outcome of the acts of Service. In fact, their motto has become a paradox. Senseless killings and murders, robberies, violence, bullying, survival of the fittest (jungle law becoming the order of the day) are committed regularly and the perpetrators are not apprehended in a number of cases. In instances where some are arrested, justice is sold to the highest bidder. The leading newspaper in Ghana, the Daily Graphic today wrote the following damning editorial on the performance of the Service in recent times and warned about downward sliding of the image it is creating for itself in the minds of a number of people living in Ghana. This piece is worth reading: "There is a gradual diminishing of public confidence in government and the security services’ ability to remain impartial when it comes to enforcing the laws of the land.

The unsavoury trend is evidenced by a number of unfortunate cases which cropped up recently about which nothing seems to be happening as regards the arresting of suspects and other applicable standard measures when the law is breached.

Many are compelled, justifiably, to conclude that today, there is selective enforcement of the law and that some persons in authority seek to turn Ghana into a country ruled by men and not by laws, a wish which is bound to crash given the distance the country has traveled from the dark days of arbitrariness.

Government, surreptitiously in league with the Police, it would appear, has adopted a measure of turning a blind eye to certain anomalies so that with time the heat these generate would abate naturally.

A little over a month or so ago, a certain New Patriotic Party (NPP) activist, Salifu Maikankan aka MKK, died under unnatural circumstances, a development which called for an autopsy to be undertaken on his remains.

It would be recalled that he had partaken in a picketing exercise alongside other party members close to the Greater Accra Regional offices of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) where Hon Asamoah Boateng was being held. The police fired dozens of teargas and even used live ammo to disperse the crowd.

A number of versions were advanced as to the cause of the death of the party man who returned home only to pass away the next morning.

Under such circumstances the natural and scientific thing to do is to order an autopsy which was assumed to have been carried out at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

Just when anxious colleagues, parents and relations of the deceased thought the results were going to be released, they were told that some tests had to be undertaken at the Noguchi Memorial Medical Research Institute and the Ghana Standards Board.

It is about three weeks today since the information was relayed to the family members and other concerned persons, yet the results are still being withheld in a security vault somewhere.

The development has fuelled all manner of speculations which do not augur well for the image of the government and the Police Service as a security institution.

We and other Ghanaians want to know the cause of death of the gentleman because we think that someone is deliberately holding on to the results with a view to denying us this important piece of information.

As to the reasons why this is being done only they can tell.

Another subject which is denting the image of government and the Police is the Agbogbloshie murders.

Many days have elapsed since the gory incident took place yet nobody has been arrested by the Police.

We are aware that those in their hospital beds at the Police Hospital disclosed names of persons who inflicted wounds on them; yet none of them has been apprehended and it does not seem that any of them would ever be.

We are getting worried and even scared about what our country is turning into. A situation where some citizens can take the law into their own hands and go scot free because they belong to a particular political party cannot be acceptable.

Africa’s failed states showed such symptoms of degeneration in the early days of their decay and so it would be in our interest to avail ourselves of the lessons from such historical notes.

We are fed up with lengthy PR releases from government and the Police when basic policing requirements are left undone.

We are watching and would return to this subject if the authorities fail to respond to the concerns raised". Source: Daily Graphic Editorial of 10th September 2009