Near-slaps for ‘ashawo’ whispering police

There was a near brawl between agitated passengers and two police officers at Golf City junction on the Ashaiman – Michel Camp road Tuesday morning, when a policewoman (a constable) labeled a passenger as a harlot.

“Ashawo!” she had called the woman who had alighted to defend an ‘under arrest’ driver of the Benz sprinter bus she was travelling on.

And but for the swift intervention of a section of the passengers who all condemned the policewoman’s unguarded slip, the agitated husband and son of the insulted woman, as well as other passengers were ready to descend on the uniformed officers, shoving them about and ready to pounce.

The policeman, a sergeant, had stopped the driver of the bus with registration number GT 3453 – 17, travelling from Afienya to Accra, and taken his driver’s license from him on the grounds that he had driven on the shoulders of the road.

That attitude is very rampant on this particular road, however the policeman got it wrong on this occasion when he ‘arrested’ the driver on that charge because the latter had only stopped to pick a passenger and rejoined the traffic.

The policeman after collecting the license asked the driver to alight and follow him to the back of the bus, which he did. This was about 7:20am. After a few minutes, the driver returned to call the last passenger he had picked to go and tell the policeman where he had joined the bus from.

It was at this point that all the passengers started agitations for the policeman to free the driver so they could continue their journey, insisting that the driver did no such thing as the police were accusing him of.

The woman then confronted the policeman to stop the nkwaseasem (nonsense) that was holding everybody or workers were going to be late, at which retort the policeman threatened to arrest her for the ‘insulting behaviour’.

The woman also replied “wontumi nnye me foko”, (there is nothing you can do to me), with other passengers also pressing for the police to set them free for their journey. It was at this point that the police constable joined in to call the woman “ashawo!”

The husband and son of the woman, who were also passengers on the bus, then joined in ready to deal with the uniformed officers even as other passengers restrained them.

Eventually, the policeman agreed that the driver could take the passengers to their destination but was to report back at the Tulaku police station. However that was not before he had radioed his station to report the incident, which saw a dispatch rider accost the bus near the Afariwa Junction to inquire of what had happened. Even here, the family of three gave him a piece of their mind.