Flag bearers assigned security detail ahead of polls
The Police Service has assigned security details to political parties for personal guard services ahead of this year’s election.
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The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur, said each political party had been assigned six security persons, four of whom will ensure the safety of flag bearers while two protect their running mates.
“It is purely for personal security responsibility that we are assigning these people. They are not supposed to be involved in any politics. The police officers are also to appear in police uniforms at all times,” Superintendent Arthur explained.
The police said the political parties would not pay for the services of the security detail assigned to them.
It further said their men had been given special training and were capable of providing VIP protection.
In a related development, an independent presidential candidate in the 2012 election, Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah, popularly known as JOY, has complained about his neglect by the Inspector General of Police as far as the allocation of police guards to presidential hopefuls and their running mates in the forthcoming election is concerned.
In an interview on Accra FM last Thursday, in connection with the exhibition of the voters register by the Electoral Commission (EC), Mr Osei Yeboah made the point that just as the election management body continued to neglect him in its election-related programmes, the IGP had also failed to include him in the Police Service’s security package for presidential hopefuls, although he will be contesting as an independent candidate in this year’s election.
“For the EC forum on the voters register, I was not invited; they always discriminate against me. At IPAC meetings, I’m out because I don’t belong to a political party. Even the police protection for the flag bearers, they say I am not a party so I am excluded. I don’t know what people are thinking; they want me to organise a convention for the EC to acclaim me as flag bearer but I am not a party so I can’t do that. I am a no-party president,” he observed.
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“What Ghana and Africa need is what Benin has done (where an independent candidate won the election to become the president).”
The issue of security for presidential candidates and their running mates came to the fore after three South African security experts were arrested and later deported for training some bodyguards of New the Patriotic Party (NPP).
The trainers, according to the NPP, were supposed to provide security for the party's flag bearer and other key members of the party before and during the November polls.
The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) said the activities of the South Africans constituted a threat to national security, hence the decision to arrest and deport them.
The assignment of the security detail by the Ghana Police Service is aimed at preventing political parties from hiring their own bodyguards.