Probe causes of violence during elections – Ex-CID boss

A former Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, COP (rtd) Bright Oduro, has called for a thorough investigations into the causes of the violence that occurred during the elections in some constituencies in the country.

He said the culprits must be apprehended and be dealt with in accordance with law.

COP (rtd) Oduro made the call when speaking on the Key Point programme on TV3 Saturday, December 12.

He told host Abena Tabi that “The elections are over although we don’t know what the other side will do whether they will go to court. But the elections are over, winners have been declared and therefore, we should move on.

“There have been talks about the incidence that occurred and the need for proper investigations to be conducted and whoever is found culpable must be dealt with according to law.

“But we should move on as a country because this is not the first time we have had elections, we have had elections since 1992 and immediately after the elections we live together as one people so we should move on.”

Meanwhile, a security analyst Dr Ishmael Norman has admonished government to consider erecting monuments for the persons who lost their lives during and after last Monday’s elections.

The Ghana Police Service on Wednesday, December 9 said there were officially a total of 61 electoral and post-electoral incidents recorded nationwide during and after the elections.

Twenty-one of the incidents were said to be true cases of electoral violence, six of which involved gunshots.



Five deaths were recorded, the National Election Security Taskforce (NESTF) said.

“The NESTF deems the incidents recorded to be incidents that could have been avoided and therefore condemns their occurrence and promises to investigate each one of them,” the police said in a statement.

But Dr Norman, who is the President of the Institute for Security, Disaster and Emergency Studies, said those who died wanted to merely express their democratic rights.

“Just as we erected a statue for Captain [Maxwell Adams] Mahama, we should erect statues for these people because they are the true patriots,” he said also on The Key Points.

He said the monuments will serve as a “reminder to everybody that ‘Never Again’”.