The military was only used in emergency situations at polling centres – IGP clarifies

The Inspector-General of Police, James Oppong-Boanuh has squashed claims that military men were deployed at various polling centres on December 7 to oversee the electoral process.

According to him, the allegations are false as some military men spotted at some centres on the day, were only there to serve as a back-up in emergency cases.

At a press briefing Thursday, December 10, 2020, the IGP noted that the general election was supervised by the Police Service and other security agencies without the involvement of the military.

Mr Oppong-Boanuh, while addressing the media said, “It is important to highlight that we rolled out a four-tier deployment strategy for the elections which revolved around static duties at the polling stations and the collation centres, Mobile patrols, Rapid Response Teams and Reserved Teams. The core election duty was at the polling stations and the collation centres where personnel of the various security agencies were deployed without the involvement of the military."

The IGP furthered that, "The military, together with the various Operation Units of the Ghana Police Service were deployed for back-up in emergency situations. The military was not involved in the duties at the polling stations but were called in under rapid response and emergency situations only. The impression being created that the military was used at the polling stations is therefore not correct."

Meanwhile, the Ghana Police Service has said about five people have died from electoral and post-electoral incidents nationwide.

The security agency pointed out that 21 of the incidents were through electoral violence while 6 involved gunshots resulting in the death of 5.

The cases according to the Police happened in the Awutu Senya East, Odododiodio, Ablekuma Central constituencies among others across the country.