File photo: Ghana Police
A security analyst Kwesi Aning has said the lack of trust in institutions is what causes people to react in an adverse manner when the same institutions are exercising their legal mandate.
His comment was in reaction to the decision by some supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Kumasi to besiege the Central Police Station to demand the release of the party’s chairman Bernard Antwi Bosiako, who was being held for assault.
Dr Aning, speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show on Class 91.3fm Wednesday May 4, noted that there was a culture of undue political interference in the work of security agencies, a practice, which, he said in the long term, can threaten the country’s security.
“There is a culture and a history of undue political interference in the functioning of the security and intelligence agencies, of which probably the Ghana Police Service is the greatest target,” he told host Prince Minkah.
“Anytime anybody thinks he has a little bit of power, the first public institution that they ride roughshod over is the Ghana Police Service, and particularly in an election year, they are being threatened with transfers, being intimidated, abused… . “We need the [Ghana] Police Service as the Ghana Police service also needs us. But when we rubbish a critical frontline institution like the [Ghana] Police Service, we threaten that service’s neutrality and potential effectiveness, and in the long term, we threaten our own security.”
He criticised the attitude of “invading the premises of the Ghana Police Service in a situation where the police are now going through the legal processes to bring the individual involved to a court of competent jurisdiction”.
“We should allow the process to go on, but part of the challenge is about trust,” Dr Aning added.
He said the country must find a way of building institutional trust and warned things could go wrong if the issue of trust is not resolved.
“How do we build institutional trust in a manner that we can all feel comfortable and we can all feel happy and we can all feel that this decision has been made? Let us allow the institution that has the authority to get the job done,” urged the academic.
“We have got to find a way of recreating and rebuilding trust in our politics and in our society, otherwise things will go very poorly for us and I always say this, ‘Politics is about working hard to bring about social welfare goods and making sure that people are OK. If the process of getting power undermines our ability to stay united as a nation and as a people, then we need to begin re-questioning ourselves.
Dr Aning counselled Ghanaians and politicians to resort to PIPS (Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau) if they were unhappy with the service delivery of the police.
“Everybody at the top of every single political party in this country knows that there is something called PIPS. PIPS provides the professional services that the Ghana Police Service needs. It ensures professional delivery of services by the Ghana Police Service. So, in cases where organisations or individuals feel that the services performance of these duties have been unprofessional, then please document these instances, send them to the regional commander, forward a copy to the Inspector General of Police and a copy to PIPS,” Dr Aning advised.
