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.
It is quite embarrassing when people get education but refuse to think, only to become automatons that fail to understand the essence of the knowledge they have acquired. I reckon the PRO of the Police Service holds the erroneous notion that he must defend the police at all cost. A PRO’s job is to appease all parties by tactfully diffusing tension but not to merely jump to the defense of the employer. This guy should have apologized and then called for an assessment of the occurrence using the video footage so as to plan a better way of handling crowds. How can we improve if we cannot recognize failure.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nii, for bringing to the fore one of the subtleties of President Obama's visit. The police acted wrongly in the manner they handled our own people. I can only hope they perform better on another occasion.
ReplyDeleteIt is a pity when I get to know that most of the servicemen who supposed to be the nation's security backbone hardly read the laws that guides their profession. Most of them therefore act on emotions and not necessarilly principles.
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