In the face of various discussions around Ghana’s current security situation and the role of security agencies in maintaining law and order, renowned security expert, Prof. Kwesi Aning has made some revelations.
He identifies a peculiar problem that has remained unresolved by the service for a long time.
According to him, crowd control has been the Police Service’ biggest challenge over time for which reason many unfortunate incidents which could have been prevented have occurred.
“The police has specific protocols, they are trained, but historically, the Ghana Police Service has faced one consistent challenge through time and that is the crowd control and crowd management and they haven’t learnt how to get it done and therefore, the last major crisis, was the Accra Stadium crisis and if you read the Okudzeto report, and several other reports, crowd control is always a problem,” he said, whilst speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile programme.
His comments come on the back of recent happenings in Ejura where some police and military personnel were captured using lethal means to disperse an unarmed crowd of protestors.
The incident led to the death of 2 persons after protests followed the killing of #FixTheCountry campaigner, Kaaka by unknown assailants.
Prof. Aning believes the core of the problem is the ‘quality of intelligence’ and the system of communication.
“It is not about the failure of the police in terms of how to control the crowd, it is the nature of the quality of the intelligence and the report that was sent up the chain of command,” he said.
“I’m coming back once more to talk about the failure of that intelligence process and the quality of whatever report was sent and the decision-making process.
“Unlike Wa, when Ejura started, there was silence. An analysis of the discourses from the youth was one of plea. ‘Please help us, we think we know those who are involved.’ When that didn’t yield any results, it was “We will take the law into our own hands.’ That neither yielded any results until the burial and subsequent incidences,” he added.
