Protection for MPs: ‘Animal Farm’ police politics unfair – Franklin Cudjoe

President of policy think tank, IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Franklin Cudjoe, has joined the several critics of a decision of the government to provide special police protection for Legislators.

The outspoken member of the Civil Society community described the decision by the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, to deploy at least 200 police personnel to protect MPs as they campaign for the upcoming elections as unfair.

“'Animal farm’ police politics aside, the government just increased the Red Alert security level by agreeing to farm out 200 policemen and women to MPs. Not fair,” Franklin Cudjoe posted on Facebook.

In the wake of the murder of the Mfantseman MP in a robbery attack last Friday, October 9, 2020, MPs renewed calls to be provided with personal police protection.

Last Tuesday, October 13, 2020, the Minister of Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery announced in Parliament that his outfit has assigned 200 police personnel to provide personal protection for MPs.

He said an additional 800 men, were to be made available for other duties in Parliament and the homes of MPs as well.

But Franklin Cudjoe told GhanaWeb that the police personnel themselves could well become victims of these armed robbery attacks, pushing for a policy strengthens the entire national security.

“We don’t even have enough police personnel and now we are deploying them to provide personal protection to Parliamentarians. This doesn’t make sense,” he said.

Some security and policy analysts have also spoken against the deployment of police to protect the MPs.

Meanwhile, Deputy Defence Minister, Major (rtd) Derek Oduro, has said the opposition to the deployment of the police personnel as personal protection for MPs lacked merit.

According to him, the Ghanaian media is to blame for inciting the public against MPs as the media has set the agenda adding that it was unnecessary to provide personal police protection for the parliamentarians.