Police not struggling to contain vigilantism – CID Boss

The Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, says the Police is not overwhelmed by the wave of vigilantism seen under the current New Patriotic Party(NPP) government.

“…As and when they come we deal with it, but if the case is in court then it is out of the hands of the Police Service. We’re not struggling to deal with it,” the CID Boss told host Bola Ray on his Personality Profile Show- Starr Chat on Wednesday.

According to her, 5 related cases of vigilantism has been recorded so far of which three of the cases have been dealt with by the court while two are currently being investigated by her outfit.

Her account on vigilantism however is in sharp contrast with that of an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dr Benjamin Agordzor, the Director of Transformation Programmes Office, who recently intimated that the current constitutional arrangement of appointment and removal of the police leadership did not embolden police chiefs to act impartially asking the government to consider amending the 1992 Constitution to give the Ghana Police Service (GPS) independence to operate and protect the citizens from violent groups.

“You cannot tie the hands of the Police and expect us to work professionally,” ACP Agordzor said at a roundtable held on Wednesday on the theme: “Breaking the Cycle of Vigilantism in Ghanaian Politics,” organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance in Accra.

Also former Deputy Minister, Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Emmanuel Habuka Bombande, has blamed the incessant attacks by vigilante bodies in the country on government and its interference in the management and service of the police.

He finds it surprising that political parties or some authorities in the country, for personal reasons, ‘take it easy’ on these sects when they misbehave and yet turn around to blame security personnel for their sluggishness in handling issues.