IGP, walk talk on law enforcement

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, has threatened to invoke the ‘Riots Act’ to deal with criminally minded persons in society.

In the colonial days, the then government passed the ‘Riots Act’ to deal with what it perceived as riotous behaviour by the ‘natives’ and when that was done, it had dire consequences for the ‘natives’ so the act was dreaded.

For the IGP to indicate that he was going to invoke that Act to deal with miscreants meant that going forward the criminals can run but cannot hide.

For some time now, lawlessness has become the order of the day in most of our communities. Lawless behaviour comes in the form of drivers driving on the shoulders of the road, jumping red light, speeding, overtaking at unnecessary places and disregard for other traffic regulations.

Today, ‘Okadas’ (motorbikes) operators have taken over our roads, especially in the cities and selected rural communities. Okada operators have no regard for road traffic regulations.
They ride on any section of the road, jump red lights, refuse to use crash helmets and overload the motorbikes.

What is amazing about this lawless behaviour is the apparent encouragement given to it by some policemen and women who wave them along the roads.

No doubt, a section of the public believe that majority of the motorbikes are owned by policemen and policewomen.

The phenomenon of land guards, machoism and vigilantism has likewise become part of the lawlessness in our society.

Mob justice is also a growing occunence.

White-collar thievery is on the ascendancy as some of our public officials take delight in looting state resources for personal and family comfort.

We have a lot to do to maintain law and order and avoid slipping into the state where might is right and rule of law is thrown to the dogs and rule by men is cherished.

The Daily Graphic agrees with the IGP that the time has come for the security agencies to deal ruthlessly with the few miscreants among us who have decided to take the law into their own hands.

The law-abiding citizens are many and that is the reason why the police and other security agencies must rise up to the occasion and bring the criminal gangs to book.

We also know that crime combat is a shared responsibility and the police will need the support of the public to succeed in this regard.

The Daily Graphic has no doubt about the capabilities of the police but the actions of some of them bring the Police Administration into disrepute.

The IGP should also step up the cleansing exercise in the Ghana Police Service to weed out the bad lots whose actions soil the reputation of the service.

While not doubting the efficiency of the police, the Daily Graphic thinks that the IGP has been talking a lot about lawlessness in our society in recent times but real action has been slow.

We, therefore, appeal to him to walk his talk in order to restore the people’s confidence in the Ghana Police Service.

We have no immediate statistics to back the claim that law and order has totally broken down. Nonetheless, the few security breaches in recent times have created fear and panic among people.

It is for this reason that the police must act with dispatch to bring the situation under control, otherwise the few miscreants would create national security concerns for the investor community.