Tamale Central MP condemns rampaging youth for destroying Lamashegu police station, NEDCO office

The Member of Parliament for Tamale Central constituency has condemned the destruction of the Lamashegu police station and the offices of NEDCO in Tamale, the Northern regional capital.

Hon Ibrahim Murtala says the actions of the youth is condemnable and must be pointed out to them in no uncertain terms.

According to him, he had been cautioning the police in the area to be careful with the way they treat residents of Tamale.

“We condemned the action which is supposed to be condemned in no uncertain terms, but I don’t want us to take away the rational, the anger, the reasons why the press briefing was done. People have the right to hold press conferences and no one stopped them, but those who did what they did on their way to the Trobu Naa [were wrong].

“…But you see when that incident happened, I granted an interview to several media houses and I said it, I cautioned that when you begin to push the people too much, they will push back. In fact, I met the Metro commander and I told him that we need to take steps to prevent some of these things,” he recounted.

He indicated that when reports of police officers overstepping their boundaries are made to the police and nothing is done, the people might be pushed to react in the manner they did over the weekend.

"Let us all condemn what they did but let us also caution that the police…and it comes back to professionalism.

“When there is mistrust between community and police, you would have some of these things happening, and that is the mistrust we must all collectively work together to ensure that we take it away,” he told Lantam Papanko on GHONE on Monday morning.

Some youth on Saturday vandalized the Lamashegu police station and some properties of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO).

Afterwards, they moved to the Lamashegu Divisional Command of the Ghana Police Service.

Upon reaching the police station, the irate youth began pelting stones at the police building, destroying the glass doors and windows of parts of the building.

Some vehicles that were parked at the police station were also damaged.

Their actions were a result of a video circulated on social media in which some police officers were manhandling some residents suspected to have engaged in illegal power connections.

It received wide condemnation from the public, traditional authorities, and civil society organizations in the Northern Region.

Following the huge condemnation of the actions of the police personnel, the police administration interdicted the four policemen who perpetrated the act.

However it appears the youth were still not satisfied as they vandalised the police stations and NEDCO office.