‘Politicians fear their own shadows when they are in opposition’ - Accra Regional Commander

The Greater Accra Regional commander, DCOP Patrick Adusei Sarpong has explained the rationale behind ‘distrust’ for the police service by opposition political parties in the country.

According to him, politicians exercise some level of influence on the police service when they are in power and therefore fear when they leave office, that the very same things they ‘used’ them for under their governments, will be repeated by their competitors.

“When they are in government, they have a certain influence over the police, and when they are out of government, they don’t have it, they become afraid and apprehensive that the powers they used when they won power and had, will also be used against them”.

“They are afraid of their own shadows”, he added.

Explaining further, DCOP Adusei Sarpong said, often times ruling parties use the services of these groups for their parochial interest and so when they lose power, they lose trust in the service and to some extend the reason for the formation of Vigilante groups in the country.

“Politicians have said many times that they have formed these groups to protect them, as to whether that is genuine or not, it is for them, they are the politicians and they have formed the groups but at the end of the day, everybody condemns that it is not a healthy situation".

Sharing his views on how the trust in the police service can be regained he said "politicians should do politics and allow security men to do security and with time, trust will be restored "