Security analyst calls for surveillance on Bryan Acheampong ahead of 2024 polls

Security and conflict analyst, Anthony Acquaye has urged the Ghana Police Service to closely monitor the activities of Bryan Acheampong, a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party, in the lead-up to the 2024 general elections.

In a write-up shared on his social media page on April 2, 2024, Acquaye stated that Bryan Acheampong's repeated statements that the NPP will not cede power to the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the upcoming general elections were concerning and could pose a threat to the nation's democratic stability.

Acquaye highlighted Acheampong's past involvement in the 2019 Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election incident, where his actions led to violence and injuries, as a basis for the need for increased surveillance.

“Bryan Acheampong is capable of exploiting the vulnerabilities within the Ghana Police Service and other sister security institutions... can repeat the same tactics by using fake personnel with state security uniforms, be it police or the military, to intimate and subvert votes in his opponent's strongholds,” he wrote.

The analyst warned that Acheampong's financial resources and influence could be used to undermine the electoral process through tactics such as deploying fake security personnel.

Acquaye also called on both the NPP and NDC to be vigilant and stressed the importance of internal security measures to prevent any actions that could destabilise Ghana's peace.

“Both the NPP and the NDC must also understand that such election security risks can not only be handled by state security; for this matter, they must also be on high alert to ensure effective and efficient security control measures to block any act that tends to plunge this country into chaos,” he added.

He advocated for the collection of threat intelligence on Acheampong to understand his potential impact on the election outcomes and to ensure robust security controls are in place.

“This fundamental characteristic of Bryan Acheampong calls for modelling him as a threat actor to further gather more threat intelligence to ascertain his offensive objectives, capability, tactics, techniques, and procedures ( TTPs), to enable the election security task force to monitor and put in robust security control measures to block all the loopholes that can be exploited to the disadvantage of election outcomes,” he said.

Read the full statement below

Anthony Acquaye writes...

GHANA POLICE SERVICE MUST MOUNT CRITICAL SURVEILLANCE ON BRYAN ACHEAMPONG'S DAY-TO-DAY ACTIVITIES AS A THREAT - ACTOR TOWARDS 2024 GENERAL ELECTION.

Bryan Acheampong's statement that his party, the governing NPP, will not hand over power to the NDC party should it win power in the forthcoming 7th December general election is neither a rhetorical nor a positional statement, as believed by some sections within the security and political landscape. A positional statement, as described by its proponents, is a statement made by a person with the aim of protecting their fears, interests and needs.

But unfortunately, the constant repetition of Bryan Acheampong's statement is absolutely beyond a positional statement and rather threatens the democratic success achieved by Ghana for the past years. For this reason, the Ghana Police Service must be of high concern to add Bryan Acheampong's name to their 2024 election security threats profile list to enable them to mount critical surveillance to monitor his day-to-day activities and to further identify his intent, capability, and motivation behind his utterance, which has the high tendency to jeopardise the peace and stability of our beloved country, Ghana, before, during, and after the election.

Analysing the open source information on Bryan Acheampong's historical well orchestrated attack launched on some sections of the opposition party NDC members during the 2019 Ayawaso West Wuogon by - election through strategic use of state sponsored fake uniformed personnels from the SWAT detachment, which led to one person's leg amputated, couple with his recent financial accumulation power, Bryan Acheampong is capable of exploiting the vulnerabilities within the Ghana Police Service and other sister security institutions based on the pattern analytical tool, can repeat the same tactics by using fake personnels with state security uniform being it police or the military to intimate and subvert votes in his opponent strongholds.

Both the NPP and the NDC must also understand that such election security risks cannot only be handled by state security; for this matter, they must also be on high alert to ensure effective and efficient security control measures to block any act that has the tendency to plunge this country into chaos. They should be more careful about insider threats who sell their information out.

This fundamental characteristic of Bryan Acheampong calls for modelling him as a threat actor to further gather more threat intelligence to ascertain his offensive objectives, capability, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to enable the election security task force to monitor and put in robust security control measures to block all the loopholes that can be exploited to the disadvantage of election outcomes.

ID/ ADG

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