Security analyst, Adib Saani, has described Director General of Operations for the Ghana Police Service, COP George Alex Mensah, as sounding more like a politician than a police officer during his appearance before the ad-hoc committee set up to investigate alleged plot to oust IGP George Akuffo Dampare.
According to him, the situation isn’t only limited to COP Mensah, but a phenomenon which has been the case for years. Nonetheless, he revealed that the seeming over-politicization of the police service is really a matter of grave concern.
“… What I am very worried about is whether COP Alex Mensah is a police offer or a politician. He spoke more like a politician than a police professional. I think that is sad because we cannot delink politics from police … There are speculations to the effect that if you are not even connected, you’re not able to get recruited, if you’re not connected, promotions don’t happen… So, it is really problematic and listening to COP from the scratch, he was being dodgy about the whole thing.”
Adib Saani
Commenting on COP Mensah’ position on the leaked audio in which he was part of the plot calling for the removal of the IGP, Mr Saani expressed his reservations about the responses given by the COP. He stated that the COP sounded cagey and insincere in his line of responses.
“At a point, he said a part of the tape was doctored, and at a point he said the whole tape is doctored and the next minute he said he didn’t hear it well… I’m a body language expert, looking at his body language, his mannerism, the inconsistency in some of the statements and all that, it was quite obvious that there’s a lot more to the issue than we know.”
Adib Saani
During his narration of his side of the story before the committee, COP Mensah revealed that IGP Dampare isn’t managing the police service well and insisted there are a lot of disgruntled officers within the service. To this, Mr Adib noted that as a leader, there’s no way “you can please everybody all the time”.
Leadership of IGP Dampare
Mr Saani explained that he might have his differences over certain policy directives of the Ghana Police Service, and one of the major challenges he has with the police service in recent times is their attitudes towards the media.
“The media goes to cover events, and I understand they are asked to leave and you cannot fight the media for crying out loud. I have also had calls from a section of the population including very top people within and outside the police service who have spoken about certain boys cult and that these are the new crop of police officers who don’t respect…”
Adib Saani
Furthermore, the security analyst stated that when it comes to the management of the police service, there have been some festering concerns within the service. He highlighted that on several occasions, he’s had conversations with the IGP around his vision for the police and without mincing words, he emphasized that the IGP “means well for the police, just that he might have engaged in certain activities that ended up being very unpopular amongst his rank and file”.
“A clear case in point is when you need information from the police… If there’s any issue with the police, they issue a statement, and there are follow-ups because sometimes they are inconsistent, incoherent and somewhat confusing. So, you need to follow up with interviews like it was done in the past…”
Adib Saani
Elaborating on some of the good features of IGP Dampare, Mr Saani noted that since he became IGP, a lot has changed within the Ghana Police Service, with visible revamping of the cold case unit, introduction of the K-9 unit and the horse patrols.
Additionally, he indicated that there’s more accountability within the police service, although it’s not a perfect institution.
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