What Does He Mean By "discretion"?

Yesterday on the news, the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Police Service gave a statement on actions taken by the Ghana Police Service and some of its personnel during President Obama's visit.

He was defending the Service' strategy regarding the closing of some major roads in Accra. He thought it was the contribution of the citizens of Ghana to sacrifice some of their precious time to make the visit of the US president an historic one.

In my opinion, I think he made a good point. I suppose it is based on the premise (if I may) that, "nothing good comes easy". Well, it was unfortunate for the motorists and pedestrians on the days the roads was block, but, like the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Police Service said, it was our contribution the success of the visit.

But I am very uncomfortable with another statement he made pertaining to the crowd control in Cape Coast. He was trying to defend some of the brutish, uncivilized and unprofessional actions some of the police officers meted out to our brothers and sisters in Cape Coast. Mind you, all they wanted was to see President Barack Obama, but some of them ended up being slapped in the face, kicked, pushed and shoved like they were pieces of logs. It was really bad of the police officers and the images captured by the news crews showed the disgraceful and barbaric manner our police officers treated the crowd.

Interestingly, the PRO of the Ghana Police Service tried to defend this shameful actions by insinuating that the crowd got a little over excited and became quite hard to manage, as such the officers controlling the crowd could use their "discretion" in maintaining the order. I suppose what he meant was that it was ok for the officers to beat, hit, slap and kick members of the crowd just to get them to order. Hmmmm, this does not sit well with me at all. Is the PRO saying it is ok for officers of the law to maltreat citizens of Ghana just to get them to act in a certain way? Is he saying that the Police Service cannot take alternative actions that does not involve physical abuse to maintaining law and order?

I wonder what he will think if his daughter or son had been slapped just because he/she wanted to take a closer look at Obama? What about our ministers of state who were literally scrambling to shake hands with Obama after he gave his speech in Parliament, would it have been ok for the Secrete Service to slap them too?

The bottom line is that, the Ghana Police Service acted unprofessionally and instead of them evaluating and improving their operations, the PRO is making excuses.

Well, I have news for you Officer PRO, and the news is that we do not think manhandling and treating Ghanaians like animals is excusable. As young people, we know the world has come far along on appropriate measures and actions that security services take to maintain law and order, as as such we would not condone ineptitude of any kind. I suggest the police service start reviewing and changing their operations.

I think I have raved and ranted enough. Till I think out loud again, let us all-especially young people in Ghana and in Africa, stand up to certain excesses from authorities that wield power and demand to be treated right.

Was Obama’s visit a good thing or not?

The President of the United States of America’s visit to Accra can be described as joyous and something we should be proud of (As Ghanaians), yet also an extremely uncomfortable experience for the many Ghanaians.

It was joyous because, firstly, out of 53 States in Africa, Ghana was chosen to host Obama. Secondly, Obama stayed in Ghana for at least 24 hours, long enough for some serious talk with our government officials (I hope!). And perhaps lastly, Obama’s address to Parliament was inspiring and had a relevant message to us young people in Ghana and in Africa- in this address the U.S promised to provide $63 billion for health improvement in Africa.

But Obama’s visit was also a huge inconvenience to people who live in Accra because of the security precautions that were taken for the president’s visit. Motorists and pedestrians had to stay in traffic for as long as 4 hours. In most cases however the traffic delay was for about hour and half hours (as reported by some TV stations). The result was that many people were late for work, and I suspect that some could not even make it to work. Trotro drivers could not make their daily sales for the day as most of them had fewer hours to do their business.

My personal perception of Obama’s visit is that, it was inspiring and I feel it was a good visit for us young people. Not to mention the fact that the country was “able” to rehabilitate the La General hospital (something that was ignored for several years). Plus there was a lot of cleaning of the city of its filth that we seem to comfortably live with.

But why do we wait for visiting international personalities before we act? Where did the money come from all of a sudden? (I’m assuming the La General Hospital was not fixed up all this while because of lack of funds, as is the case with nearly all problems that need to be solved). Is this befitting of us as a people? Is this befitting of a country that claims it is the gateway to Africa? Should this be the case for a country that literally lead the independence struggle of African states about 50 years ago? And the most important question of all, what are “you” going to do, or perhaps, what are you doing about Ghana’s prosperity and development?

Are you satisfied with the way things are going in this country and across Africa? Well, I hope you and I will do something about it.

Well, until the next time I Think Out Loud, let us not forget what Barack Obama has been able to achieve personally, and his message to us. I hope his personal story propels us all to do something productive for our communities and country.