In the past few weeks the country was rocked with a chain of security breaches in the form of brazen armed robberies.
These are not picnic days for the Police Administration as the nation looks up to it for a ‘we are on top it all’ assurance.
In Kumasi’s busy Alabar, a group of hoodlums descended on the sprawling Garden City suburb, killing a person and making away with unspecified amount of money. On the same day in Sunyani, another group of hoodlums carried out a robbery feat in the regional capital.
In Walewale in the North East Region on Friday and Saturday, armed robbers struck.
The frequency of robberies is expectedly worrying and feeding into the opposition propaganda that the country is insecure. The fact is that while we expect the security agents to avert such breaches, we cannot accept the political twist to it because that favours the game-plan of some politicians.
The security of this country is a shared responsibility. When there are breaches as have occurred recently, using the political lenses for analysis does not help but rather distances us from the solutions we so badly desire.
In all the robberies, which occurred in recent times, the commonness of motorbikes as a getaway means was visible.
The police must factor this, as we think they have, in the drawing up of their strategies in the remaining days before voting and after it.
Those working towards creating a picture of insecurity would use, to a large measure, motorbikes.
While we cannot with evidence point at the long hand of some politicians in the bloody scenarios in their desperate bid to paint a picture of instability, we are constrained nonetheless to think that part of the infamous Ofosu-Ampofo audio recording is being played out a few weeks to December 7.
It is very easy to create confusion in the minds of those who seek to analyse the issue of security in the country against the backdrop of the subject under review because of the robbery factor. The temptation not to ascribe political undertones to the robberies is high and that is exactly what those who love a Ghana bedeviled with such breaches would smile about.
Besides the use of motorbikes now being a feature of robberies the ease with which assault weapons are acquired is another conundrum which has defied all interventions.
The constraint of the rule of law is glaring but for which we would have asked the police to be given special powers to deal with the impunity-driven armed robberies.
Banning motorbikes from polling stations on Election Day would be a valuable step which the security taskforce must consider.
It is possible that criminals and their patrons intend to exploit the election period engagements of the security agents to their advantage.
A Police Service busy with election duties might have little or no time for alternative criminal activities such as normal armed robberies.
The security management of the elections should not be restricted to securing polling centres and boxes. A holistic approach is preferable because it is clear that the criminals intend exploiting the vacuum that will be created when the attention of the security agents is riveted on the elections only.