'Ayawaso Violence shouldn’t be used as a yardstick for 2020 elections' - Police

Director of Public Affairs at the Ghana Police Service, Sheila Abayie-Buckman, has established that the fact that the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election was plunged in chaos does not mean similar incidents will emerge in the upcoming 2020 general elections.

According to her, the police have adequately prepared for the upcoming general elections to prevent any of such occurrences and as such, she believes that the public still has some trust in them to deliver.

“Majority of the people have the confidence and trust in our preparedness. We cannot use Ayawaso as a yardstick for the general elections. The general elections have been constituted since 1992. There have been incidents, yes but Ayawaso should not reflect the entire totality of presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana. Although we have policed several elections in this country, we take every election as a different event,” She exclusively told GhanaWeb’s Daniel Oduro.

Reacting to the assertion that the public has lost trust in the police service following their inability to apprehend offenders after the Ayawaso violence, Mrs. Buckman emphasized that several legal steps have been taken so far.

She added that the police have learnt their lessons from the incident which will be applied in the 2020 upcoming general elections.

“Talking about the Ayawaso by-election, several steps have been taken. There was a commission of enquiry that sat for everybody to see, white paper issues so legal processes have followed. We apply lessons learnt from previous elections to new situations,” she maintained.

Meanwhile, there have been calls for the prosecution of offenders involved in the Ayawaso West Wuogon election violence.



Several institutions including the largest opposition party (NDC) have taken on the Police Service for failing to act when the violence erupted.

Although the Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Francis Emile Short has presented its report on the incident to government, the recommendations in that report are yet to be implemented.