Police to Presidential candidates – Make your choice

• Posted on May 27, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The police administration has given presidential candidates of the various political parties the option to submit the names of police personnel that should be assigned to them during this year’s electioneering campaign.
The selected police personnel would be retrained by the police administration and provided with logistics to discharge their duties effectively.

Director-General in-charge of Operations, COP Christian Tetteh Yohuno told representatives of the various political parties that the directive was issued a month ago, but the parties were yet to submit the names of the personnel.

At a three-day workshop organized by the Ghana Police Service and the Small Arms Commission for representatives of political parties at Ada last Tuesday, COP Yohuno said the rationale for the workshop was to also discuss issues on election security and to finalize the modalities for the provision of security to the presidential candidates in the upcoming elections.

He said it was important for the police administration to protect presidential candidates to enable them campaign.

Presenting the modalities for the provision of security for the presidential candidates, Chief Superintendent Dr. Benjamin Agordzo, director of operations, said personnel assigned would only cover political activities and not private engagements.

“Personnel chosen must be given decent accommodation and meals when they are to travel outside the region but the police will also monitor their activities to make sure that they remain neutral.”

He stressed that the police administration would not hesitate to withdraw personnel if any presidential candidate uses them to carry out domestic chores.

On his part, the Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey called on all political parties that would contest the November 7 election to sign a peace pact ahead of the elections to promote peace in the country.

The peace pact, he said, would serve as inspiration to all the followers of the political parties to behave appropriately during the elections.

Dr Akwetey said political parties and the police have a role to play in ensuring that the Ghana’s democracy was not destabilized.

“Resorting to violence is not the answer, if you shoot your opponent would also shoot and it will take years to put an end to the shooting just like we have witnessed in some other countries.”

He noted that studies carried out by civil society organizations show that Ghanaians were anxious about chaos.

Dr Akwetey said Ghana has seen a lot of reforms in our electoral processes yet we do not believe the systems.

Director of the Small Arms Commission, Brigadier General (Rtd) Francis Agyenfra, in a speech read on his behalf, explained that violent conflicts in other countries were triggered by the widespread availability of illegal weapons, the large population of unemployed young, trained mercenaries, pervasive poverty and the religious extremism sweeping across the sub-region.

By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey