Minority MPs call for dismissal of IGP

Some Minority Members of Parliament have joined calls for the dismissal of the Inspector-General of Police, Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong.

MP for Tamale North, Alhaji Abukari Sumani said the IGP had failed to tackle the cocaine menace in the country.

The Ranking Member on the Interior and Defence Committee of Parliament said he is considering petitioning the president through the Minister of Defence and Interior on the matter.

“These are leaders who sat there in their headoffice where they operateand cocaine that is kept in the strong room in the fifth floor is able to come down the stairs, get to the ground floor, then load itself into a vehicle and move away, and nobody, not even the guard at the gate captured it”, he lamented.

The National Union of Ghana Students on Thursday called for the resignation of the IGP.

The president of the Union, Kweku Tuoho Bombason said the poor handling of the cocaine saga by the police warranted the resignation of the IGP.

That position is now being held by some Minority MPs.

Alhaji Sumani urged the IGP to take the initiative to clear his name by resigning and also save the country from being tagged as a transit point for cocaine.

The MP for Shai Osudoku David Tetteh Asumani said the Police under the IGP had failed to fight crimes and cocaine related issues.

He told Joy News that the image of the police had sunk so low that the IGP needed to go.

But the Police Public Affairs Director, DSP Kwesi Ofori says the police were on top of the issues had done nothing wrong.

He said the police had maintained peace, law and order in the country and needed to be commended.

He called on the accusers of the IGP and the police to visit other African countries and assess security situations there before jabbing the Ghana Police Service.

A security expert, Dr. Kwesi Ening however disagreed with the police PRO, saying the “police must accept that it is losing credibility if it has not lost it already”.

He said the leadership of the police had failed ordinary citizens of the country, emphasising that the image of the police had sunk to its lowest ever in the history of the Ghana.

According to him all commissions of inquiry had pointed to the fact that the police service needed to be reformed.

“I think the police service is rotten to the core”, and the leadership must accept that, he stated.

Reacting to DSP Ofori's statement that the police had maintained peace in conflict zones such as Bawku, Dr. Ening said imposing a 22-hour curfew on a people is a gross abuse of human rights and should not be viewed as a success story in the maintenance of peace.

Story by Malik Abass Daabu