COP David Asante-Apeatu
The new Inspector General of Police (IGP) David Asante-Apeatu is assuming responsibility of this foremost internal security organization as the new Chief Constable at a time when morale of most personnel is low and confidence of Ghanaians in it at its lowest ebb.
That the man is primed for the task staring him in the face is not in doubt, his rich record of service saying it all about who he is and what he can do given the appropriate support he can garner from the political establishment and within the police system.
A good IGP is one who would not only enforce the law, regardless of whose ox is gored but would offer good counsel to his boss the President even if this is distasteful. Not giving such admonitions is tantamount to sycophancy which the previous President relished lavishly at the hands of John Kudalor.
President Akufo-Addo said what most Ghanaians think about the Ghana Police Service during his campaign trail when he touched on the need for an overhauling exercise to restore confidence in it.
In the last four years or so, the Ghana Police Service endured scathingly the worst form of interference from politicians at the helm with the latter having a field day in every aspect of police administration, including enlisting foot soldiers even when these persons did not meet the standards of the institution.
In overhauling the Police, the President must listen to the new IGP whose rich experience in policing against the backdrop of the myriad self-inflicted challenges at the Police Headquarters comes in handy.
As a victim of the tyrannical administration of the previous order, he understands better what it means to be given an office and a desk with no clearly defined role because you are politically incorrect or not ready to play a dangerous ball. He also knows how political stereotyping has affected negatively the career of fine police officers.
We have no doubt in the obsession of the President to see a changed Police Service, an extension of his Ghana project.
The President’s ‘change agenda’ would be meaningless unless our law enforcement system is rid of human contagions at the helm of the Ghana Police Service.
Bad ways when they are particularly entrenched cannot be rooted out overnight but with perseverance and sincerity alongside steadfastness the needed feat would definitely be achieved.
Since criminal cases have no statute of limitation, it is our prayer that the CID, a critical yet abused appendage of the law enforcement system, would be revamped to rid it of the bad nuts who have done the dirty bidding of politicians to the detriment of the proper functioning of the department.
Those who saw nothing with damaging the eye of a compatriot just because he is NPP and partaking in a legal demonstration must bow their heads in shame.
The dozens of cases of political murders as they occurred at Agbogbloshie, Chereponi and others are begging for attention.
Those were shameful blemishes in the record of the Ghana Police Service.
Our confidence in the new IGP, as in the President, is unalloyed – the reason we think positive changes would surely come.