I Was Not Dismissed

CHIEF INSPECTOR of Police, Alhaji Muhammad Alidu (rtd), a Member of Research and Communication Committee of the Greater Accra Regional Secretariat of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has denied being sacked from the Ghana Police Service.

He said he was rather “removed from the Ghana Police Service with full benefits” and that “removal with full benefits is never a dismissal”.

The retired Chief Inspector was reacting to a story carried by the DAILY GUIDE in which one Prince Adam Hamidu warned him to desist from attacking former President Jerry John Rawlings or face the consequences.

In the said publication, Prince Hamidu catalogued how the ex-police officer was axed from the police service including his dismissal as the Upper Regional Organizer of the Police PDCS and WDCS and also as the Commander of the Police Task Force in the then Upper Region.

Setting the records straight, Chief Inspector Alidu said in his crusade against economic saboteurs and smugglers during “the so-called revolutionary era, I stepped on the toes of former PNDC member, Captain Kojo Tsikata (rtd).

“This was after I have arrested a hardened smuggler by name Ibrahim Mohammed alias Munaga Allah, who was penalised to pay ¢14,589,620 to the state in 1989. But Captain Tsikata ordered the then IGP, Mr. C. K. Dewornu to get me out of the Ghana Police Service.

“Mr. Dewornu, who had earlier congratulated me for doing a good job, surprisingly ordered a service enquiry against me for speaking to the press about the case without permission from him as the IGP. I was subsequently removed from the Ghana Police Service with full benefits”.

Chief Inspector Alidu said his appeal against the decision in 1989 proved futile but in 2003, the Police Council revisited the appeal and he was recalled into the Service and promoted to the rank of a Chief Inspector. In addition, he said the Police Council awarded him ¢10 million as compensation for the 15 years that he was at home, saying he formally retired from the Service with his pension and all entitlements paid to him in full and the records “are there for Prince Adam Hamidu and his likes to go and check at the Police Headquarters”.

On the warning from Prince Hamidu that he should stop using “unsavory indecent language and making personal attacks on former President Rawlings”, he dared Prince Hamidu to convey such a message to the ex-President rather than to him.

“If Rawlings, as a former President who ruled Ghana for 19 years, can continuously call President Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo and the entire leadership of the NPP as a 'bunch of thieves and criminals' and he Prince Hamidu finds nothing wrong with it, then he should be living in a fool's paradise”.

He reiterated his earlier challenge to Mr. Rawlings to substantiate his allegations that President Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP presidential candidate and the entire leadership of the NPP including himself are 'a bunch of thieves' made at an NDC rally at Akwatia on January 9, this year, adding that he would seek redress in court to perpetually restrain the former President from unduly attacking the integrity of the NPP leadership.

The retired police officer said if ex-President Rawlings is not comfortable with the present government's policies, the only alternative is for him to leave the country, “because Ghana is not his bonafide property”.

By James S. A. Kwashie