Fuseini Issah, a former member of parliament for Okaikwei North, has refuted claims that an Inspector General of Police may aid the current administration in rigging a general election.
Mr. Fuseini Issah stressed that the idea of rigging elections in favor of the ruling party is impossible in Ghana, due to the country’s improved and transparent electoral system and should be discounted.
Elections are only won or lost at the polls, said the former Okaikwei North member of parliament. His remarks are in response to a leaked audio in which a Police Commissioner is heard urging the resignation of the IGP, George Akuffo Dampare, before the 2024 elections in a chat with a significant NPP member.
However, Fuseini Issah underlined that the unverified tape should be disregarded because the assertions made in it cannot be supported. He asked the populace to use care and avoid making snap judgments based on unreliable information.
The leaked tape allegedly contains government plans to oust Inspector General of Police Dr. George Akuffo Dampare from his position in an effort to rig the upcoming 2024 General Elections. In the interim, Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin has ordered the creation of a seven-member special committee to investigate the tape.
President Supports Dampare
Paul Adom-Otchere claimed on the widely circulated recording that the President supports Dampare and will not change him.
“Nobody wants to change Dr. Dampare even Akufo-Addo will not. When his MPs said change Ken Ofori-Atta, did he change him? We are still here. Ken Ofori-Atta has won a major success by delivering the IMF, nobody is going to change him.”
Paul Adom-Otchere
Adom-Otchere urged the authorities to look into the claim.
Citing anonymous insiders, the journalist also claimed that the Ghana Police Service had created an elite force.
He claimed to have received inside information on the supposed elite group, which is allegedly part of the Police Intelligence Department (PID) and solely answers to Inspector-General of Police George Akuffo Dampare.
Mr. Adom-Otchere emphasized that due to the potential consequences of having such a force in action, if the special unit did actually exist as claimed, it must be disbanded right away.
“The PID is being used by Dr. Dampare allegedly to empower a certain elite police group and they do anything and nobody can talk to them and they talk only to the IGP.”
Paul Adom-Otchere
Before voicing his concerns about Dampare having centralized police communications nationwide, he cited the case of a reported habeas corpus application against the police in the Northern Region over the reported killing of five young men in November 2022 as the work said to be of the “elite force.”
“When I hear that an IGP is creating an elite group in the police, I know that it is particularly wrong and the Ministry of Interior, the Office of the President should not countenance that. The police are the police, every police officer is a police officer, let’s not create any anything.”
Paul Adom-Otchere
In addition, he mentioned the 64 Infantry Battalion of the JJ Rawlings era and Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah’s own Guard under the command of General Bawa, as examples of special forces that have traditionally posed a danger to conventional armies. “We shouldn’t have a PID that feels better than another police man. That is so dangerous and this is what we are hearing that is happening in the police,” he added.
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