Stop Or I’ll Shoot You - Police Commander Threatens Officers

The James Town District Police Commander, Deputy Superintendant of Police (DSP) Franklin Addai, surprised onlookers and his own men last Thursday when threatened to shoot any of them who dared to arrest NDC hoodlums who ran riot in Accra.

Credible sources told DAILY GUIDE this was during the heat of confusion in the Odododiodioo constituency in which a group of machete and arms-wielding supporters of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the area were running riot.

It was a day after the parliamentary candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ablekuma South, Ursula Owusu, and a member of the party’s Communications team, Samuel Abdulai Jianapor, were attacked and brutalised in the area by some of the NDC youth, allegedly led by one Tsikata, Bruno and Nii Okai.

Anybody who saw them was compelled to take cover for fear of being victimised.

The police received information that some NPP youth were on rampage in apparent response to the previous day’s incident in which Ursula Owusu was assaulted by NDC machomen.

When they arrived at the scene, the police managed to arrest one of the miscreants.

But upon reaching a spot around the St Mary’s Anglican Church near the Ussher Polyclinic, they were confronted by some of the marauding gangsters who, apart from seeking to confront the police over the arrest of their colleague, were wielding dangerous weapons and chanting war songs.

Some of the policemen who had been detailed to maintain law and order, including the armoured squadron which arrested the young man, began firing warning shots into the open air to disperse the crowd.

DSP Franklin Addai, who has been accused by the NPP of biased, realised the miscreants were NDC supporters and immediately removed a pistol from its holster and pointed it at his own men, ordering them to stop shooting or he would shoot any of them who dared defied his orders.

The dumbfounded policemen had no option but to obey the order of the senior officer, a situation that was said to have emboldened the miscreants to charge on the police.

At this stage, the James Town District Police Commander ordered the release of the young man who had been arrested and was being held in one of the vans, giving the NDC youth an upper hand over the police.

This was said to have angered most of the policemen at the scene that day as they thought the action of the officer was embarrassing and could create suspicion and doubt in the minds of members of the public.

The officer did not deny the incident when contacted.

He rather questioned why the issue was now coming out when “a whole lot of waters have crossed the valleys to the end”, stating, “You people you want Rwanda to come to Ghana.”

He later dropped the call.

The NPP is particularly worried about the fact that the police have not made a single arrest though the names of Tsikata, Bruno and Nii Okai have popped up as being part of the marauding gangsters whose actions are in breach of the Public Order Act and peace.

The young men are believed to have been hired by the NDC’s parliamentary candidate for the area and presidential aide, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, to prevent non Ga-speaking persons from registering in the ongoing biometric registration exercise in the constituency. Mr Vanderpuye has however denied this allegation.