Adam Bonaa slams KNUST prof over ‘unscientific’ claims about image of police under Dampare

Security analyst, Dr Adam Bonaa has described as baseless claims by a Political Science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Amakye Boateng, that the image of the Ghana Police Service is sinking under its current leadership.

According to Dr Bonaa, Dr Amakye's claims, whiles reacting to a viral video in which some police officers were seen on their knees begging a gang of illegal miners, is not grounded in research.

“I don’t think he has any basis, there is no basis for that. It is difficult to use an instant or two to make such a claim. He is a researcher, I suppose based on the title he has but it is simplistic to say an organisation's image is sinking because there has been some cases of officers who probably might have misconducted or might have come under attack. I don’t want to believe that he has any scientific basis to make that assertion. He is a PhD holder and I think he should know better,” Dr Bonaa told GhanaWeb in an interview.

Speaking to Kumasi based Angel FM, Dr Amakye noted that "the challenge the current IGP has been facing is still going high, and the image of the police is getting out of hand. The image is not positive."

But contrary to that, Dr Bonaa asserted that the Ghana Police Service under Dr George Akuffo Dampare has seen significant improvement in terms of fighting crime, maintaining law and order.

“Every police organisation all over the world is judged by the levels of crime. Their cardinal duty is to protect lives and properties to ensure that there is peace.

“And so as far as I am concerned, I will be judging every police organisation all over the world including ours by the levels of crime either going up or coming down. And I would want to say that I am sure that we called for police visibility, we called for highway patrols, we called for hardened criminals to be apprehended; we called for highway jackers to be clamped down and I think significantly that has happened in the last 16 or so months,” Dr Bonaa said.

He emphasised that there has been a general improvement in security, law and order under the current police leadership despite the significance of work that still needs to be done in that regard.

The Ghana Police Service on April 2, 2023, announced the arrest of some four persons it said had attacked officers with the Axim Police Command.

The announcement by the police followed reports about a viral video in which a gang of suspected illegal miners were engaged in a heated confrontation with a team of police officers in a forest.

In the said video, a police officer was seen going on his knees to beg the leader of the gang who was accusing them of attempting to “take him away” after he had “given them money.”

The police in their statement identified the leader of the gang as Kwame Ato Asare Ani is still on the run.

But in speaking to some media houses from his hideout, Kwame Asare said he is a police informant who receives money from illegal miners within the Axim area on behalf of the Axim Police Command.

According to him, the police were after him because he has pocketed some GH₵100,000.00 he took instead of handing it over to the police because he felt cheated by the police in previous deals.

Meanwhile the Ghana Police Service in its April 2 statement said it has referred the allegations of extortion made by Kwame Ani to the Police Professional Standards Bureau (PPBS).

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