Police can’t overrule pockets of chaos during elections – Cephas Arthur

The Ghana Police Service is ready to ensure peace during the 2016 elections, but cannot overrule pockets of violence, the Public Relations Director of the service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur has stated.

According to him, the police were ready, the moment the Electoral Commission announced its readiness to conduct the elections slated for December 7, 2016.

Speaking on Starr 103.5 FM’s personality profile programme, Starr Chat, Wednesday, Supt. Arthur said the police is busily picking intelligence that would help it dilute any form of chaos that may pop up during the elections.

“Intelligence is the pivot of police work,” he told Starr Chat host Bola Ray during an explosive interview that exposed the service’s unpreparedness in case of any eventualities, when the emergency numbers for the polls were called by producers of the show, to ascertain his claim of readiness.

He added: “If we are able to have a very strong intelligence apparatus and you are able to pick intelligence…pieces of information around, assess them, then you are half way through policing.”

“So, the first thing we are doing to ensure that we are able to provide protection and keep the security and the peace that we are having is to pick lots of intelligence, synthesize them and see whether it would help us to keep the peace,” said Mr. Arthur.

He said intelligence officers had been sent to zones identified as hotspots to pick up intelligence so that “we can all create a more peaceful atmosphere before the elections.”

Asked by Bola Ray that “so, you can safely assure Ghanaians that all is well, your men are on the ground [and] that we have nothing to worry about or to fear?”

He replied that “very much so. Expect that we are in a human society and irrespective of the kind of the stringent measures that we put in place, some miscreants might want to test the resolve of the security agencies.”

The moment of embarrassment came when he was asked whether the police has any emergency numbers in case of any eventualities before, during and after the elections, he answered “yes.”

But when the numbers where dialed they either failed to go through or went answered, a situation he described as embarrassing.

Stammering to explain the reason behind the lack of answering of the calls, he said it might probably be due to "technical" hitches.