Police taking Bribes on the roads is not a Crime, opines Police Department Head

I have been taken aback by an observation made by Commissioner of Police (COP) Nathan Kofi Boakye, the Head of the Legal and Prosecution Department of the Police Service. He shamelessly without remorse made a statement directed at not only downplaying the obviously denigrating police corruption but also, exonerating the police from blame.

Kofi Boakye is not an ordinary police officer. He is well educated with postgraduate degree in Administration. He is also a barrister at law. He has studied in the United Kingdom.

In granting an interview to Kwasi Pratt Jnr, as l have it currently on my WhatsApp platform, he appears to see nothing wrong with the police taking bribes from drivers on the roads.

When Kwasi Pratt Jnr questioned him about the much spoken about unprofessional and illegal attitude by the police in respect of taking bribes, he justified the police attitude by his response.

He cited nepotism, interventions by politicians and traditional chiefs to get arrested criminals off the hook, giving positions to people not on merit but whom-you-know basis and many others to support his view that the police are right to accept bribes.

Shockingly, he said, is the one, one Cedis the police collect on the roads anything to compare with what the politicians do?

He further intimated that it is only the Motor Transport and Traffic Union (MTTU) or whatever it is called, branch of the police that collects money on the roads.

He appeared to discount the acceptance of bribe by the police as nothing worthy of any serious person's attention. If a police Department head, and of course, the Legal and Prosecution, should be of this deplorable view, then God save Ghana.

Does Nathan Kofi Boakye, a law himself by virtue of being a police officer and also a lawyer, know the repercussions of the police on our roads accepting the one, one Cedis he talks about so evasively in downplaying manner?

Why are the police on the roads in the first place? Are they able to do the jobs for which they have been assigned to the roads if they collect the bribes? Is Kofi Boakye not aware that the police officers are induced by the bribes not to diligently perform the very duties for which they go to the roads?

Many of the road accidents on Ghana roads do occur for the fact that the police fail to do their job properly. They are more interested in the bribes they take than the safety and protection of the road users for which they have been employed and paid for.

Does Kofi Boakye, a police head and a lawyer, know that accepting bribe is a crime no matter how much money is involved? Does he know that a lawyer or a police officer is punished more for committing the same offence as an ordinary lay person will commit except in the circumstance where the only sentence for that crime is capital punishment? Why is this so?

The police are employed to protect lives, protect properties and prevent crimes. These are their principal duties among many others.

Therefore, for a police officer to be seen collecting bribes is wrong.

Kofi Boakye should please do himself a favour by reading Ghana Criminal Code 1960 (Act 29) sections 239 to 250 or so.

Sorry to say, Kofi Boakye has come across as a misfit in his position concluding from the interview he so granted to Kwasi Pratt Jnr.

Is he not aspiring to become an Inspector General of Police (IGP) in Ghana? You just imagine the level of ensuing police corruption with impunity to beset the country should he ever get that post, holding on to his view as told above.

Rockson Adofo

Wednesday, 17 February 2021

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