Mr President, we salute you for calling police to order
President John Dramani Mahama, at a grand durbar to climax this year’s Asogli Yam Festival of the chiefs and people of the Asogli State last Saturday, condemned police brutalities against those engaged in the “Let my Vote count” demonstration last Wednesday.
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He also asked the Police Administration to probe police excesses during the demonstration by some Ghanaians to demand a new voter’s register for the 2016 general election.
The President’s condemnation is heart-warming because almost everything in the country is given political colouration and the unfortunate action by the police last Wednesday sought to suggest that they were acting on the orders of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC).
We join the President’s call to the police authorities to examine the event critically and take steps to avert similar occurrences in the future.
However, we believe that an independent commission of enquiry will do a better job of thoroughly investigating all the factors that culminated in the brutal attack on citizens who were only exercising their constitutional and democratic right to demonstrate.
While we condemn the police for such acts on the very people they had been deployed to protect and guide during protest marches, we also urge all would-be demonstrators for any cause to always ensure that they keep to the routes agreed upon and not give the police any excuse whatsoever to unleash terror on innocent citizens.
Ghana is a nation of laws and we are appalled that in this 21st century citizens in a democracy will be brutally assaulted while exercising their right to be heard.
We are worried that the defence put up by the police since the incident has been that they only used minimal force or what they termed graduated force.
We have a very good police service but the excesses have been one too many. The worst stadium disaster to have occurred in the country on May 9, 2001, which claimed 127 lives, was as a result of the inability of the police to effectively control spectators on that fateful day.
We also recall what the police did to members of the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) when some policemen from the Accra Regional Command unleashed terror and mayhem on them in 2007 during the Kufuor administration.
The Daily Graphic believes that the call for effective training for our Police Service must not end until we see some change in the way our peace officers control crowds, whether they are rioting or on a peaceful march.
The use of truncheons, tear gas, water cannons, rubber and even live bullets at the least provocation must be discouraged at all times and anyone found to have resorted to their use unnecessarily should be punished by the leadership of the service.
The Daily Graphic is very worried about the wrong signals the police, which are supposed to be a friend to the public, are sending by engaging in brutal acts against citizens. To whom should the citizens report when they are under attack if the police themselves are attacking the citizens?
Ghana’s next elections are just around the corner and we believe that this is the right time for the Police Service to sit up, so that we enjoy peaceful elections that will not be marred by policemen who get lost or out of control when it comes to the basic tenets of policing.
Be that as it may, we salute President Mahama for standing up to be seen as the father of the nation, even when his spokespersons have been commending the police for showing the demonstrators where power lies. Indeed, those spokespersons or government communicators presented themselves as being more Catholic than the pope.
But, Mr President, the Daily Graphic humbly appeals to you not to allow the police hierarchy to probe its own; otherwise the police will be judges in their own cause.