Security Analyst Col. (Rtd) Festus Aboagye says with the name Ghana has built for herself in matters of smooth democratic dispensation, the country should have done better in the just ended elections.
He indicated that he expected an incident free election but that was not the case, hence the nation did not live to the standard it has set for herself. He said right from the compilation of a new voters’ register through to the exhibition and to the elections, cases of security glitches have been witnessed.
He noted that, nine major violent incidents were recorded as a result of the compilation of a new voters’ register. Amongst these nine cases, he said at least two persons were reported dead while others sustained various degrees of injuries and several properties in different categories destroyed.
“The violence didn’t stop after the voters’ registration, it continued into the voter exhibition and sadly, it reared its head in the elections proper.” He added.
Col. Aboagye (Rtd) further disclosed that, figures given by the police in terms of the number of affected persons in violent cases could be contested. However, he said if figures given by the police are anything to go by, there were a total of 61 electoral cases nationwide.
“Let’s work with the police’s press release where it said there were a total of about 61 electoral and post electoral incidents nationwide. That figure could be contested by a chilly day shred; we need to hear from other institutions like CODEO, CDD and so on and so forth.
“But of this 61, the police say that only 21 were true cases. Of these 21 true cases, six were fatal and they resulted in the death of five lives and about twenty injuries. So between voters’ registration, post voters’ registration, elections and post elections (and I don’t think the election cycle is over, given that there are a few more constituencies that are supposed to be declared), we have lost in the region of seven lives and more than 20 injured.”
He also spoke ill of the conduct of the security personal in managing the crowd they met in Techiman South. He said he cannot believe that the security personal spotted in a viral video of the incident are really the professional security men they come across to be.
“Look at the videos and evaluate the manner in which force was used. I can say for a fact that, there is no police or military academy or training center where crowd control is managed in the manner that we saw at Techiman South.
“I cannot bring myself to accept that those engaged were professional police officers and military officers. I think that in all likelihood, they were men dressed in those uniforms who do not belong to these institutions.”
Col. Aboagye (Rtd) concluded by saying “all was not peaceful, granted that it was not wide spread and the scale was not too large but it is a blot on the democracy of this country.”
