Akufo-Addo does not want to stay an hour beyond his term – Interior Minister

President Akufo-Addo, according to Interior Minister Ambrose Dery, is not interested in remaining in power for even an hour after his second term ends.

He was responding to a leaked audio in which a senior police officer claimed that the IGP, Dr. Akuffo Dampare, needed to be sacked so that a new IGP aligned with the NPP could be appointed to make their rigging schemes possible.

Ambrose Dery, the Interior Minister, has denied reports that the government plans to fire Inspector General of Police Dr. George Akuffo Dampare before the 2024 general elections.

The Police Commissioner, who is reportedly retiring, is heard telling the politician in the leaked audio that if the current IGP stays in office, the NPP should forget about winning the upcoming general elections. The audio leak has gone viral.

According to the senior officer, he will provide the same level of security, if not more, than the IGP did during the recent Assin North by-election, which could thwart any attempt by the NPP to rig the 2024 election.

Addressing the press in Parliament on Tuesday, July 11, 2023, he urged the public to disregard them as baseless.

He said there is no such plot against the Inspector General of Police, stressing the importance of upholding the integrity and independence of the police force during the electoral process, adding that: “tapes will be useful if they relate to a crime, but otherwise No. But I haven’t made that determination whether this is criminal or not.

"Let me make it clear that this government is not going to tamper with the 2024 elections. The president does not want to stay one more hour beyond his term. We also want to make sure that we have a free and fair election.”

He added: “We have made a lot of progress. We have a police system that is professional that will arrest you whether you are an MP, Minister. They will arrest you even if you are a police officer,” he said.

“What the President of this country made clear right back to the manifesto of the election before the first term was that there was a fear syndrome in Ghana and part of the fear syndrome was that people thought that we had a security system that was not across the board.

"It favoured a class of people in office who were too big to be touched and therefore the tenet of the rule of law that we are equal before the law was not tenable.”