2020 Election: IGP could have done better - Security Expert

A security expert, Adam Bonaa has commended the Electoral Commission for conducting a credible and comfortable election.

Although he recognised the work of the police during the time of voting, he said the Inspector General of Police (IGP), James Oppong Boanuh and the entire police could have done better than it did, “after voting, counting of votes, collation and even after declaration of the results”

He also said the police could have done better with the way it handled certain cases after the election adding that the death of 5 civilians could have been avoided.

Speaking in an interview with Atinka TV, Adam Bonaa said the police paid much attention to the time of voting than the aftermath.

He was of the belief that if the police was pro-active in dealing with the aftermath of the voting, people wouldn’t have lost their lives.

“Most of the things the IGP said were rhetoric or lip service, because of some of the things that happened before the election. At Hawa Koomson’s constituency, what happened at Odododiodio, and they couldn’t arrest anyone or punish anyone; If you look at the Banda Constituency, someone shot during the registration, I think about two Ghanaians died during the exercise, and so I am not surprised that after the election, five people died and as far as I’m concerned, we could have done it better,” he said.

He continued that, ”As for the voting process, I will commend the EC for the systems it put in place, because I did not spend much time going through the voting process. I did not take three minutes to vote presidential and parliamentary and I suppose most Ghanaians who voted went through the same but we could have done better.”

Adam Bonaa said, ”The police could have done better but unfortunately with the way things are going I am not happy. I’m not happy at all because things could get out of hand and escalate at any given moment.”

He explained further that, ”What happened is that the security agencies and the EC overconcentrated on the voting instead of the aftermath. But they did not really concentrate on the counting, collation and the rest which happened later in the evening and people could do all sort of things, if they were able to factor all these, it would have helped but unfortunately it didn’t happen like that.”

He noted that the average Ghanaian is peaceful, saying that during the voting process, there were no issue of violence or mishaps until counting began where people felt they could be cheated and become aggressive.

“That is where I will say that the instructions the IGP gave did not work,” he said.

He therefore called on leaders of the two major political parties, New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) to come together and advise their supporters to calm down tempers after the 2020 election results.

“At this time, the leaders should sit and dialogue because the security agencies cannot do it alone. This is the time the leaders of the two major parties have to show leadership. Our President, Akufo-Addo should call John Mahama and some of the opposition party leaders, the Chief Imam, the Christian Council and the EC and a few people to have a conversation in the full glare of the media, once people begin to see that they are talking, they will have nothing to fight for and the situation will be solved, ” he said.