The IGP inspecting a parade mounted in his honour
Inspector General of Police (IGP) James Oppong-Boanuh has assured that the security services will do their best to ensure that there is peace on the election day and that every eligible voter will exercise his or her franchise without any hindrance.
“I’ve been to see the chiefs and I have appealed to them to always be talking to the youth in the communities not to allow themselves to be used to foment violence during the elections because if they do the long arm of the law will catch up with them,” he said.
The IGP made this known on Wednesday in Koforidua when he visited the Eastern Regional Police Command to assess the preparedness of the command ahead of the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Addressing the media after inspecting a parade, the IGP explained that they were putting every measure in place to protect the people during the election and said “the purpose of my visit is to assess the operational readiness of the police in the region.”
“You and I know that on the 7th of December we are going to elect our president and our parliamentarians and it is the primary responsibility of the Ghana Police Service assisted by the other security agencies to provide security for these elections. Therefore, I’ve been going around the country, region by region, to look at how prepared the police officers in those regions are towards the election 2020 and today is the turn of the Eastern Region that is why I’ve come to Koforidua.”
The IGP warned police officers not to be partisan on the election day but rather display professionalism and do their work the way the laws of Ghana expect them to do.
The IGP said a unique identification armlet would be provided for use by security personnel dispatched to the polling stations fish out impersonators and also enable the public to properly identify personnel on duty.
“For those who will be specifically sent to the polling stations to perform duties will have a duty armlet and we are not unveiling it now because we don’t want any duplicate to be made so you can be sure that when you get to the polling station every officer who is there whether he is from Police, whether he is from Immigration or any other security agency will have a duty armlet on one sleeve so that you can easily identify that person. So there will be identification. The identification will certainly be different from what we used in 2016 so that nobody can use the old one,” the IGP stated.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Koforidua