Recent armed robberies ‘total failure’ on police, state etc – Adam Bonaa

Adam Bonaa, a security analyst has attributed the recent hike in armed robbery cases to the collective failure of both state and private institutions.

In an interview with GhanaWeb, Adam Bonaa stated that aside the state which has failed in its core duty of protecting lives and properties, the media, financial institutions among others have also not lived up to expectation.

He disclosed that records available at the Ghana Police Service lay credence to the fact that robbery cases surge in the first quarter of every year.

According to him, due to the Christmas and new year activities, traders and businessmen and women tend to make trips within the first three months of the year to restock.

The criminals, having realized have devised ways of engaging in highway robbery during these periods.

He noted that the police have a comprehensive data on these robberies but have failed to adequately deal with the matter.

“This is not new. The year after every election is this way and the police’s own data supports this. The only thing we haven’t done as a nation is to analyze the record and find ways of tackling them. The Police’s own record shows that every year between December and April, violent crimes go up. It’s because people are busy crisscrossing the country.

As industry players, we work with the officers on the ground and you know the challenges are due to poor recruitment, poor resource of personnel, poor deployment so this is what has culminated in the cases we are seeing.

It is a failure on all of us. It is a failure on the Legislature, Executive and others. Even the bank of Ghana has faulted here. The vans they use to transit money with sirens. With the customers who are not complaining are complicit. The media is also complicit. If you look at it carefully, it is because we have not given security focus and strategy”, he told GhanaWeb.

Robbery has become an issue of concern following the attack on a pregnant woman and the killing of the ambulance driver transporting the pregnant woman over the weekend.

It adds to a long list of robberies recently witnessed in parts of the country.