George Akuffo-Dampare, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), has met with the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), over recent happenings on the political front.
The meeting, which was called at the instance of the Inspector-General of Police was necessitated by press statements, issued by both parties and subsequently followed by petitions to the Police Service, with each party calling on the Police to arrest certain individuals on the other side for some alleged offences.
The NDC’s petitioned the Police Service to arrest Abetifi MP, Bryan Acheampong, for claiming that the NPP will never hand over power to the NDC. However, the NPP after the NDC petition, followed up with a similar petition, calling on the Police to arrest former President John Mahama, over some incendiary comments he had made in the past.
At the meeting, both parties were briefed on some policing interventions in place; the political parties were also urged to “do their politics and allow the Police to do policing. “We, therefore, called on them to support us, including by criticising us constructively to do a professional job, in line with our constitutional mandate”, Dampare stated.
Statement Released By The Police After The Meeting
The Police met with the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the National Police Headquarters, in Accra.
After which, the Police Service released a statement to inform members of both parties and the public at large or the proceedings of the meeting.
At the meeting, both parties were granted permission to air their grievances against each other to enable the issue to be settled by the Police. However, the Police briefed both parties, after hearing their grievances, on two strategic interventions introduced by the Police Administration, to handle the election and politically related incidents, as part of the police transformation agenda.
Through this opportunity provided, the Police updated both parties on the status of political violence and related incidents, recorded during the recent internal elections of both parties which includes; “The arrest and prosecution of some 14 members of the NPP, for disturbances during its constituency election at Enchi and the arrest of 9 out of the 16 wanted individuals, for disturbances at the national youth and women organizer polls of the NDC at Cape Coast.”
“An update was also provided on the status of the 2020 General Election-related cases, including Techiman South and Odododiodio constituencies and the public will be duly updated on these cases in the course of the week. The first strategic intervention shared with them is the establishment of the Police Election Security Secretariat, to work with all political parties and other stakeholders to enhance the management of security for all elections in the country.
“This is a complete departure from the old order, where an election security task force was put together just some months before the general elections. Since its creation over a year ago, the Police Election Security Secretariat has worked with the various political parties in their respective internal elections, from the polling station, through the constituency to the national executive elections.The Secretariat is currently working with both parties on their parliamentary and presidential primaries.”
George Akuffo-Dampare
The Police also provided interpretation into the second intervention, which is the setting up of a dedicated legal team to subject all politically related incidents to legal scrutiny, in order to establish any element of crime or otherwise, before any Police action is taken. The Police claimed that they would however, not intervene in any situation, unless there is some form of criminality involved.
“This is a paradigm shift from the practice in the past, where people were arrested in the heat of the moment for politically related incidents, as a result of attempts by politicians on either side to whip up public sentiments against the police, thereby creating the impression that the Police supports one side against the other. In such instances, when no concrete charges can be levelled against such people, they are eventually released thereby creating the impression in the public domain as though the police were manipulated in effecting their arrests. This initiative has been used to analyze all recent cases, such as comments made by the Hon. Minister of Food and Agriculture and the Constituency Youth Organiser for the NDC at Suame, among others.”
George Akuffo-Dampare
Moreover, during the meeting, both parties were also urged that with these policing interventions in place, they should do their politics and allow the Police to do its policing.
“As we commend the leadership of the two political parties for availing themselves and contributing to the success of the meeting, we would like to call on Ghanaians to help us in our effort to build an independent Police service, which will serve the greater good of the Ghanaian people and not the interest of any individual or group of people.
“Once again, we wish to assure the public that we remain committed to ensuring peace, security, law and order in the country at all times including before, during and after all elections in the country.”
George Akuffo-Dampare
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