We have heard reports about harassments by some personnel of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) taskforce of hawkers in some parts of Accra as punishment for voting to change the previous political administration in the country.
Also engaged in the nonsense, we have learnt, are some NDC friendly policemen who do not hide their frustration that their favourite party lost to the NPP and these persons, in our estimation, are those who got enlisted through the protocol arrangement.
We are pained that security personnel who should not expose their political affiliations are doing so without apprehension about the possible implications of the absurdity.
This is how bad things have degenerated in the country, especially in quasi-military establishments.
While we are lost for the appropriate words to describe the misconduct, we can venture to state that it is not only crude but should not have a place under the new dispensation in the country.
It should be stopped immediately and those found to be responsible for the misconduct sanctioned.
We can understand what has encouraged the uncouth city guards and others in the AMA to go along that tangent. Indeed, we hear that some police personnel have also found in that pastime a means to make some money while simultaneously lashing out verbally at drivers over flimsy charges of voting for change.
They have reportedly told their victims “you voted for change and this is your dividend for doing so.”
The complaints were loud last week and we felt embarrassed seeing how educated persons who should understand how democracy works would stoop so low as to mete out such punishment to hawkers and drivers.
If this is a vent for their frustration that their party of choice did not make it at the election, then they better look for a better outlet for their disappointment.
In the case of the AMA personnel, many of them already used to collecting bribes from the poor hawkers or traders, an important supplement to their salaries, have been emboldened to become even more aggressive because, after all, a new Chief Executive is yet to be appointed. With the position now vacant, discipline has gone to the dogs. Even with one in place, corruption was no longer an offence and was done with reckless abandon.
The Metropolitan Coordinating Director who, as things stand, is holding the fort in the absence of a Chief Executive could not care less about the conduct or otherwise of these personnel who even in the best of times were anything but decent in their conduct.
Very soon a Chief Executive would be named and when that is done and the person takes his position, we are sure he would put his feet on the ground and have the recalcitrant personnel face the music.
The hawkers and others must be shielded from the harassment of sulking pro-NDC as well as commercial drivers from NDC cops. Now that a fresh IGP is in place these harassing cops would advise themselves anyway.