The Unholy Policeman And Obiri Boahene: Who Is A Role Model?

Obiri Boahene

The level of insecurity in the country has sharply increased all of a sudden by the unflinching desire of the merciless arm robbers who are bent on enriching themselves with the toil of the innocent Ghanaian. Ghanaians are still under throes of shock as security experts are predicting an upsurge in the level of robbery cases. Some even think it will get worse before getting better. Ghana is blessed with so many English speaking people under the disguise of experts. As a security expert, what do you suggest be done to nip this nascent robbery cases in the bud? Or being a security expert means being an expert of doom? With all due respect, some of the so called expert analysis of these security experts is non-diagnostic and quintessence of malarkey. If the ship is sinking, we are sinking with it en masse.

We are all bearing the brunt of shortsightedness and unpreparedness. The Ghana police force just like any other state institution is heavily under resourced, logistically. The numerical strength of the staff is not closer to the united nation’s standard. If the quality of vehicles used by the crime buster is not anything to write home about, the criminal will quickly take the advantage and carry on his trade. After all, speed of his vehicle is unmatched. It is friendly to the road with fishponds without fishes at Makranso. The gun he uses is the same used by the so called IS militants. In fact, the gun has no replica in the ammunition collection of the Ghana police service. Ghanaians always like crisis to break and reach alarming proportions before they tend to be responding in equal measure as the onslaught of the crisis. These robbery scandals started not today.

Somewhere in the northern region, it started long ago. Districts like Gushegu, Karaga and Zabzugu were areas of operations by these hoodlums somewhere last year. I intended not to share this but the subject matter demands that I do: I nearly loss my mother in a robbery operation after she had finished buying and selling from a community on Gushegu-Yendi highway on the eastern corridor and was journeyed towards home. So hadn’t the robbery attacks rocked the nation’s capital, there would not be this national outcry. Hadn’t the sales of royal motors made away in broad daylight, our globetrotter president would not cut short his trip to the US? Hadn’t the loss of a cashier’s life, there would not be changes in the police hierarchy? Heavens no! At all times, the lives of all citizens must matter.

Referring to the districts of robbery attacks supra, it is not to be said that the policemen within the jurisdiction were rendered functus officio. They did their best but they were unable to manhunt these thugs with their asinine acts. That said, news of police arresting suspects and gunning down notorious robbers is pleasing to the ears of the insecure Ghanaian. It is a telltale of living up to their mandate. The police deserve commendation for putting up this fight. It couldn’t have come at any time than now when the business friendly environment of the country was threatened by insecurity. Being alumni of Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Center is not a condition precedent for knowing that there is an inverse relationship between level of insecurity and investor confidence. No investor will be happy to be robbed off his business capital in Ghana.

The police must continue on the trajectory of fighting crime. The government must spend heavy in retooling the police even if it will cost us 50billion cedis. This government says they have policies of transformational value worthy of implementation, capable of alleviating the plight of the suffering masses. Nice to hear huh? But I wish to vehemently opine that this dream will not see the light of day until government stem the tide of these brazen acts of robbery. If you have a nice policy of transformational value which has no implementation utility, then it is at best a good intention. Ever since this unfortunate robbery attacks beset the country, there have not been political coloration of the situation which is good for fighting a crisis of that caliber.

I was however knocked for a loop when formal president demigod Jerry John Rawlings tried to insinuate the underground hand of political saboteurs. With utmost respect, it strains credulity for anyone to start nurturing suspicions on crucial matters of national interest like this. Sometimes the founder of the NDC is better off an observer than a reactor.

The policemen are not saints. They are still good men amongst them despite the incessant allegations of corruption. But I don’t know of you: I will today and always prefer the policeman putting up his best on protecting me as a role model in spite of the acts of few miscreants trying to sully his hard-won reputation to a reckless, rapscallion, malefactor, harum-scarum, party deputy general secretary with a loose tongue, who doubles as a product of the so called General legal council’s sui generis quality system of legal education.