IGP James Oppong Boanuh
Another fatal daylight robbery in the nation’s capital as it occurred yesterday is one too many and calls for a special security response.
A young police officer and a trader losing their lives so brutally at the hands of heartless criminals is heart-wrenching.
That yesterday’s incident is coming as captured in this edition following previous daring robbery missions makes us shudder.
The bravado with which the robbers undertake their missions is unlike what we know about local criminals. Ghana is inundated with foreign criminals, a fact which the ECOWAS project is making it difficult to confront frontally. We have credible information that some ECOWAS citizens are paying huge sums of money to enter Ghana through our officially shut borders.
For such unwanted guests no amount of money is too much to pay to enter Ghana, land of opportunities by hook or crook.
We must take another look at some of our ECOWAS guests because their association with local robbers is giving rise to a new strain of criminals who can operate during the day and their penchant to pull the trigger at close range is scary.
The security situation in the country is as unusual as it is worrying.
Coming on the heels of previous occurrences in the past few weeks, it represents a true reflection of our situation today.
As pointed in a previous editorial, we must rethink the issue of motorbikes in the country’s transport architecture and the movements of our ECOWAS guests.
We can bet that some escaped hardened criminals from one of our neighbouring are safely cooling off here in the bosom of their local less sophisticated colleagues.
With motorbikes now the favourite of armed robbers, we must have them registered and the custom duty on them reviewed upward, so ownership would be restricted to responsible persons.
Yesterday’s incident exposes the weakness in our management of security matters. We appear to take things for granted and to our detriment.
There must be a policy change in the type of vehicles which qualify to be designated bullions vans.
The use of Nissan or Toyota pickups with flimsy receptacles on their frames serving as bullion vans is inappropriate.
Bullion vans should be regarded as such with all the necessary features, armoured steel et al.
Even in their poor security state, the enhanced pick vans announce their presence with sirens as if to dare heavily armed robbers with the expression ‘here we come’ as the cheap padlocks hang at the back of the vehicles.
Information gathered by Daily Guide indicates that the vehicle was using a rough road, a route the driver is known to use always. What a security breach!
Using a rough road makes it easy for the robbers to strike and effectively so. Why would the driver of such a vehicle constantly use this rough road?
Security companies which are unable to purchase standard bullion vans should have their contracts revoked.
A national security emergency should be declared now as we hunt the criminals foreign and local.