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The Unprofessionalism in the Ghana Police Service is a Course for Worry

Feature Article The Unprofessionalism in the Ghana Police Service is a Course for Worry
JUN 29, 2022 LISTEN

The security services in Ghana have been an enviable profession. These were some of the professions most people cherish and respect. The level of discipline and professionalism in these services have never been in doubt. Enlistment and training of persons into these services was invariably done professionally.

The security personnel have a unique role to play for Ghanaians. Their role is very distinct and peculiar. These security personnel have never reneged in executing their task. Indeed, they have been tried and tested; proven to be competent and of high standard beyond every reasonable doubt.

Ghanaians have unreservedly relied on these personnel for security. Our lives have always been secured because of the high level of discipline and professionalism they demonstrate.

However, the long, hard earned enviable reputation of the security services is fast eroding within a cross section of the service. The Ghana Police Service of recent times has been in the media. The service has not been in the media for good. It has carved an unenviable niche for itself.

The police whose core mandate is to protect the citizenry, have for some time now, put-up a very weird and contradictory behaviours on several occasions. These behaviours have created mixed feelings among the citizenry. The credibility of the police service has been eroded. How to restore the once hard earned credibility of the Ghana Police Service has hit road block.

Ghanaians have been expressing worry and frustrations at the numerous police engineered brutalities on civilians in recent times instead of protecting and defending them.

Police attacks on unarmed citizens in the Ayawaso by-election is a classical example. The shooting and killing of about eight (8) innocent citizens in Techiman South, Ablekuma and others during the 2020 elections, irritated lots of Ghanaians. The killing of two persons when residents of Ejura came out to protest the killing of a social media activist popularly known as Kaaka still remains fresh in the minds of Ghanaians. May his soul rest in perfect peace. What is more annoying is that justice has still not been served on those who carried out that heinous and dastardly act.

Another unprofessional display by some police officers is the recent reckless handling of the Islamic Senior High School students in Kumasi who were peacefully demonstrating to drum home the incessant knock down of their colleague students and staff by speeding vehicles. The actions of the officers in that incident painted a very bad picture about Ghana Police Service.

The most recent clash between demonstrators of Arise Ghana and the police yesterday cast lots of doubts in the minds of Ghanaians regarding the professionalism and independence of the Ghana Police Service. It is still unfathomable and mindboggling, what informed the actions of the police against Arise Ghana demonstrators yesterday.

There is therefore the need for the police service to be seriously scrutinized and streamlined to curtail or drastically minimize the police-civilians clash in the country. Dr. Dampare Addo has a lot to do to reform the police service in order to restore some credibility in the service.

The plethora of issues that I have catalogued send a strong signal that all is not well with the Ghana Police Service. It has increasingly been clear that a lot of half-baked persons have been allowed to pass out as police officers. The actions and inactions of some police officers shows that serious background works were not duly done before recruiting some persons into the service. It is also quite abundantly clear that, professionalism in the police service, has been sacrificed on the altar of politics.

I therefore wish to conclude by making a clarion on the IGP and the interior minister to take immediate steps to senate the police service. This can be done by professionally selecting and properly training qualified enlisted persons. Serious background checks need to be done before recruiting people into the service. Politicians should allow state institutions the liberty to work independently as enshrined in the 1992 constitution. The advertent manipulation of some security personnel against a cross section of Ghanaians do not auger well for Mother Ghana. security personnel who were politically recruited should pay their loyalty Mother Ghana and not the politician. The over politicization of state institutions by the Akuffo Addo led government is putting the country in jeopardy. He should put an immediate end to that.

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