Senior Vice President and Policy Analyst with Imani Ghana, Kofi Bentil, has revealed that the presence and leadership of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr George Akufo Dampare has had a commendable impact on the police service.
According to him, the new leadership has enhanced the stature of the force and created a renewed confidence in the service. He indicated that in his line of work, he deals with a lot of police personnel and a few of them are a “disgrace” to the service.
Nonetheless, Mr Bentil stated that the vast majority do a very good job, iterating that the leadership of the Ghana Police has enhanced the status of the police and that the difference is evident.
“Nobody can tell me that the leadership and the person of IGP Dampare has no effect. So you have this cascading arrangement where the presence of IGP Dampare creates a lot of confidence. We shouldn’t take that for granted. It’s not because I want to worship Dampare. We know how it plays on the field and that creates security and that affects election”.
Kofi Bentil
Citing the recently held by-elections as a case in point, Mr Bentil explained that there was next to nothing violence or insecurity recorded because of the work the police put in.
Commenting on the NDC Caucus in Parliament demand for a bipartisan investigation into the alleged plot to remove the IGP and suggestions of rigging the 2024 general elections, Mr Bentil revealed that the NDC desiring the protection of the IGP appointed by the governing NPP, shows the work he has put in to make the force a good one.
“Those things are important in the nation. So, we need to appreciate that the work that IGP Dampare has done has come to the point where the NDC today feels a certain need to more or less protect him. It’s a happy problem. We need to celebrate those little wins.”
Kofi Bentil
Persons responsible for leaked audio
Meanwhile, a security analyst Dr Adam Bonaa, has commended persons who leaked the tape concerning a discussion of senior officials of the Ghana Police Service and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) on a plot to remove the Inspector General of Police (IGP) from office. He highlighted that such recordings, which border on national security, are necessary and must be encouraged.
“I don’t support recording people just like that in conversation but let me put it out there that if anyone called me to have a conversation with me that has to do with destabilising the country, believe you me, if I have to sell my house to buy a listening device to record you and put it out there as evidence as the constitution requires me to do, I will do that.”
Adam Bonaa
Furthermore, Dr Bonaa expressed that when one listens to the tape and what was discussed by the people, it was simply to destabilize this country. With this, he commended the Speaker of Parliament for constituting a committee to look into the leaked tape considering its damning content.
Also, Dr Bonaa revealed that the content of the audio is serious and must be treated with all the gravitas it deserves, because the voices were rather discussing how to break this country.
“If you have listened to everything, there are some other tapes I have listened to and some of them very injurious to the safety and security of this country, very bad and you ask yourself these are senior citizens who are discussing how not to probably, let’s not say they wanted to ‘break the 8’ but how to break this country into pieces. So, we cant just say leave it.”
Adam Bonaa
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