By Larry-Alans Dogbey
Painstaking investigation by The Herald has revealed that the transfer of the ex-Police Director of Public Affairs, Superintendent Samuel Kwesi Ofori, from the Police Headquarters in Accra, was not a “normal administrative procedure” as the Police hierarchy would want the public to swallow.
It was a punishment which traces its roots to a huge Public Relations contract signed by the Police Service with Lintas Ghana Limited, owned by the National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, at the behest of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr. Paul Tawiah Quaye.
The contract with Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey’s company was for an image cleansing exercise to give the police service, largely perceived as the most corrupt institution in the country, a better and nicer image in the eyes of the public at a yet- to -be disclosed financial commitment to the Police Service.
Lintas Ghana Limited was, for a start, to restructure the Public Affairs Department of the service and ensure the day-to-day administration of the department towards whitewashing the image of the Police.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to that effect was quickly drafted by the legal department of the Police Service on the instructions of the IGP, and signed with Lintas Ghana Limited, headed by Norkor A. Duah.
The transfer of the hardworking police officer by the IGP was also over huge quantities of Wee, 59 packets of cigarette, radio sets and lots of mobile phones seized from some suspects in some Police cells in Accra. Some police officers were said to be running “communication centres” in the cells with the phones and collecting money from suspects.
A highly-placed source in the Office of the IGP told The Herald that but for a threat of resignation and a press conference by Superintendent Ofori, to tell the true story about what was happening, the ex-Police Director of Public Affairs would have been transferred to Tamale as Police Northern Regional PRO, which is a huge demotion as the Regional PRO position is for Chief Inspectors.
Mr. Ofori was said to have written his resignation letter ready to leave the service, but when the IGP learnt that he (Ofori) wanted to resign, he changed his mind and decided to send him to Tafo Pankorono as District Commander
What is shocking is that from the police cells the suspects were using the phones to tamper with evidence which could nail them to a crime.
Also seized was an amount of ¢10 million, a water heater and a stove, all from the Charge Office of the CID Headquarters, the Nima Police Station, and the Accra Central Police Station in a special operation led by Superintendent Ofori and DSP Lamptey, who was bathed with ‘Koko’ ( porridge) mixed with hot pepper by a colleague police officer.
The drama which resulted in the transfer saga, traces its roots from the Office of the President – the Castle Osu. It began with a telephone call from an officer at the Castle (name withheld) to Superintendent Ofori that Oman FM, a radio station based in Accra and owned by Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin North, was playing a tape recording of Michael Frimpong, alleging that the Attorney- General and Minister of Justice coached him to name NPP bigwigs as those behind the false mass rape story on a Bolgatanga-bound bus.
Frimpong spoke to the radio station from police custody, against Police Service Regulations which insist that suspects must not be given access to such items while in custody.
Based on the phone call from the Castle , Superintendent Ofori’s investigations led to the discovery that some police personnel were operating communication centers in the Police cells and that it was one of such mobile phones being operated in the CID Charge Office that the radio station called and spoke to the suspect.
Further investigations led to the retrieval of “wee”, the 59 packets of cigarette, and the ¢10 million. It was during the operation at the Accra Central Police Station that the Police officers who were making a fortune from selling “wee” and the running of the communication centers in the cells, out of protest, poured the ‘Koko’ (porridge) laced with hot pepper on DSP Lamptey.
While the IGP hastily wanted some video scenes in the cells, captured during the operation, to be shown on national television, Mr. Kwesi Ofori was said to have expressed the view that thorough investigations ought to be carried out to identify the culprit police officers first before any such a thing is done.
Contrary to the PRO’s recommendation, the IGP ordered the interdiction of some police officers without any investigation to ascertain their involvement in the supply of the narcotic drugs and the running of the communication centers in the cells. In the process, some innocent police officers who were coming for duty for the first time that day, were also interdicted by the IGP.
The innocent police officers were said to have rushed to the offices of the Daily Guide newspaper, saying that they had been interdicted wrongfully in connection with the alleged Amina coaching story. Consequently, the newspaper published the story about the interdiction of the police officers and linked it to the Amina story. This infuriated the IGP.
The IGP’s position which was informed by the advice from Lintas Ghana, the PR consultants, was that Superintendent Ofori should not have waited for the Daily Guide to link the interdiction with the false Amina story.
And at a meeting with some journalists friends in his office, the IGP disclosed to them that he was transferring Superintendent Ofori to the North, according to close sources at the IGP’s office.
The journalists gleefully started sending text messages to their colleagues, informing them that Superintendent Ofori had been transferred even before the letter transferring him was ready and served on him.
Meanwhile, Supt Ofori’s transfer is seen by many as a stab in the back of ex-IGP Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, a bosom friend of the current IGP, whom he succeeded in putting on the Police Council where he wielded enormous power, and at a point, was running the police administration.
More to come
