Civic Group wants political violence perpetrators arrested
The Civic Forum initiative (CFI), an umbrella body of civil society organisations in Ghana, has called on the Police Service to deal with political violence during the 2016 November general election without fear or favour.
Advertisement
Regardless of political affiliation, the CFI urged the police to effectively deal with perpetrators of political violence equally and accordingly.
The issue of political violence came up when the Accra Regional Police Command, Commissioner of Police (COP) Dr George Dampare, met members of the CFI as part of stakeholder meetings to ensure a peaceful election.
The meeting was used as a platform for members of the CFI to share their analysis of the political and security situations, discuss some of the political operations faced by the police and also to forge cooperation between the police and civil society.
The initiative
CFI is a broad coalition of civil society actors including advocacy NGOs, policy think tanks, faith-based organisations, community-based organisations, youth groups, labour organisations, gender groups, and individual citizens.
The initiative was formed in 2008 in response to an appeal by the Electoral Commission for citizens to assist the commission to clean up the national voters register, after the limited registration exercise of July 31 through to August 12, 2008, yielded a bloated register.
Vigilante groups
During the interactions, members of the CFI also called on the police to control the use of arms by vigilante and private security forces within some political parties as the nation approached the 2016 elections.
There have been concerns over armed vigilante groups wielding guns and other offensive weapons during political events in recent times.
Other Trending Stories
These vigilante and private security forces operate mainly to safeguard the electoral fortunes of their parties during elections.
Some of these groups include 'Bolga Bulldogs', 'Azorka Boys', 'Kandahar Boys', 'Invincible Forces', among others.
The acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr John Kudalor, is reported to have indicated on January 4, 2016 in a radio interview that all political party-affiliated vigilante groups would be disbanded in the country.
Mr Kudalor, who indicated that the vigilante groups were illegal and unlawful because they were not legally registered security companies, hinted that the Police Service had started engaging the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for advice on the legality or otherwise of the vigilante groups, as well as how to go about disbanding them.
Police told to take action
In a remark, the Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, expressed worry over political parties having armed wings.
He urged the police to take “actions which can confirm that the police can take a firm stand on political activities which can put the political stability of the nation at risk”.
He observed that there had been general concerns over election and political matters where people breached the law “but no one is arrested and dealt with. It looks like the political actions are beyond the police”.
Dr Akwetey cited reports of vote buying and bribery during elections and delegate congresses by some political parties.
“We have heard of instances where money is given to people sometimes in the open. It is an offence but no one has been arrested and prosecuted. We want to see more enforcement of the law in elections.”
He stated that the inaction of the police was contributing to the loss of public confidence in the police, adding that “we want to see the police spotting out things that endanger or undermine our democracy and acting professionally”.
According to him, the citizens are helpless when the institution mandated to enforce the law do not act, saying that “we have faith but faith without action is nothing”.
Objective
On the rationale for the meeting, Dr Dampare said the meeting was also to help the police tap into the resources of civil society which had a wide network across the country.
Advertisement
“The police cannot be everywhere at the same time but through partnership with stakeholders the police can respond to situations promptly,” the commander said.
Chairing the interaction, Major General Nii Carl Coleman (Retd) commended the police for serving the nation and added that more was expected of them.
He said there were some security issues such as infiltration of arms and the increasing political utterances that inflamed passions.
Civil society, he said, would continue to advocate better conditions for the police “if you do the right thing”.
Advertisement