Anchoring Democracy Advocacy Movement Ghana – ADAM-Ghana – has taken note of how the hierarchy of Ghana police service and Ghana Armed Forces are allowing themselves to be used by the NPP government to fuel tribal and political conflict ahead of the 2024 General elections.
The recently leaked audio of a senior Police officer undermining the work of the current inspector General of Police, IGP George Akufo Dampare, by lobbying to replace the IGP and subsequently help the current NPP government to continue to cling to power regardless of the will of the majority of Ghanaians, is a worrying situation. As a country, we need absolute trust and unity between our police administration and Ghanaians as a whole to seek public support and to always deliver accurate information to the police to fight crime and enforce the laws. Unfortunately, when self-centered individuals and bad nuts like COP George Alex Mensah and others are identified, we should not hesitate, as a nation to call for their removal from the police service in order to ensure professionalism, harmony, and a united front in the Police Administration.
COP George Alex Mensah has shown clearly that he is a Police for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and not a Ghana Police and therefore, cannot use the power given to him as a Ghana police officer to fight for political battles that are supposed to be discouraged by his good office. We are therefore calling for his immediate removal from the Ghana Police Service so that he can have the full time to use his strength, skills, knowledge, and his die-hard love for the NPP to serve his party folks. Lobbying to be given the power that belongs to the State to fight for his party NPP as he did in the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election will be fiercely resisted by all the means and might of Ghanaians.
That Commissioner of police Alex George Mensah who doubles as a board member of the Economic and Organized Crime Office, EOCO, can reduce these high offices he is occupying this low as we heard him do loudly and clearly on the tape and still be in the Police service is frightening. It means you can actually have police officers who believed that elections should be rigged against the will of the people and that the appointment to the high office of Inspector General of Police ought to be dictated by political affiliation and partisan interest.
The operations of COP George Alex Mensah have always been against the interest of the nation to favor his political party and must not be allowed. COP George Alex Mensah was the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations (DCOP) who supervised the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence but turned around throwing dust into the eyes of Ghanaians. With this same attitude we heard in the leaked audio, he denied knowledge of vehicles used by masked armed men during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election at that time. According to him, the vehicles used by the masked armed men were not part of the pool of vehicles used by the Ghana police service. COP George Alex Mensah should resign from the police service now in his own interest, or else the family of the Ayawaso West Wuogon victims and Ghanaians will not forgive him when he finally drops the uniform and joins the civilian society.
Politics is gradually destroying all our noble institutions in Ghana that used to be our bragging rights, such as the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Armed Forces, etc. As we speak, Intelligence ADAM-GH is currently picking about Ghana Armed Forces is so scary to our beloved country Ghana and must be a national security concern. Two number-one meetings by the Ghana Armed Forces have been held by top government officials and some senior members of the Ghana Armed Forces to push out the current Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) Vice Admiral Seth Amoama. Mr. Amoama is supposed to go on retirement somewhere in April 2024, nine months from now. Unfortunately, Vice President Dr. Mahamuod Bawumia had a meeting with the current Chief of Army Staff Major General Opong-Peprah during the Eid holidays in his residence and since then plans are far advanced to make Opong-Peprah the next Chief of Defense Staff (CDS). Would one be wrong to conclude that the haste in this appointment is to get the hatchet men to carry Politically-motivated plans against the will of the people?. We heard President Nana Addo’s pledge which was eagerly supported by Lord Commey and Hon. Bryan Acheampong that never under their watch will power be ceded to any Political party except the NPP after the 2024 general elections.
This is very dangerous to the survival of Ghana because we have one Ghana and one people and if we succeed in using our state security to destroy ourselves based on tribe or political differences, then there is no nation for us at all including those security officers they are planning to use to disturb the peace of the nation.
Why is NPP as a party in government so bent on infiltrating the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Armed Forces with their political cronies at this crucial time?
Why the haste to remove the current Chief of Defense Staff before his retirement date?
Why can the government not wait for him to finish his term by April next year?
Is it true that the government is going to pay CDS Amoama’s salary advance with allowances up to April 2024 and force him to go on retirement?
What is this government cooking with the security and think they have to remove the current IGP and the current CDS immediately and replace them with their die-hard party members?
The Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces as state institutions are for Ghanaians and we will not allow this band of officers to destroy these noble institutions. I do not think if their predecessors were to use the GAF and GPS to fight tribal and political battles and politicized the Ghana Army and Ghana Police Service to this extent, people like Opong-Peprah and his counterparts in both GAF and the Ghana Police Service would have been interested in joining the service. These senior officers should know that they have but a few years to serve as senior officers and therefore should not allow themselves to be used by their party to destroy the hard-won reputation of these noble institutions. We wish to advise these senior officers that the integrity, morale, and the respect of Ghana Armed Forces and Ghana Police Service must be protected and remain as they came to meet it after their tenure expires.
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This Politicisation of our Police and Armed Forces has caused undue pain to ordinary Ghanaians through Political and tribal conflict in Ghana. The misbehavior of our security officers killing innocent Ghanaians before and during the 2020 General elections and the over one-year-long tribal conflict between Mamprusis and Kusaasis in Bawku and Mamprusis and Gonjas in Daboya is a clear indication that lawlessness and impunity have overcome proper security principles. Ghanaians have lost precious family members and have suffered enough in the hands of our security and will not be ready for such Political and tribally motivated security operations in the future.
Vice President Dr. Mahamud Bawumia would have failed Ghanaians, and Northerners as a whole, if during his regime as Vice President and Chairman of the Ghana Police Council, his own brothers would be dying in his backyard for more than one year, yet he could not bring lasting peace to his brothers Mamprusis and Kusaasis and Mamprusis and Gonjas. His ascension to that high office would be more or less a curse to his brothers than a blessing.
We the Patriotic citizens will always remind ourselves of our national pledge which enjoins us to defend the good name of Ghana and resist any oppressor’s rule to safeguard the only nation we have and God will help us to do so.
Signed
Azubila Emmanuel Abdul-Salam Executive Secretary ADAM-GH.
Contact: 0544418072 / 0545270290
Ibrahim A Mumuni Director of Operations ADAM-GH
Contact:
John Kwame Adu Jack
Director of Research and Media Relations ADAM-GH.
