We’re creating a dysfunctional police institution with this type of behaviour of police officers – Security expert
Following the recent skirmishes between students of the Islamic Senior High School at Abrepo Kumasi and officers of the Ghana Police Service have once again put the spotlight on the professionalism the Ghana Police Service attaches to dealing with such issues.
Security expert Mutaru Mumin Muktar who is the Executive Director for (WACCE) could not hold back his disappointment at the Ghana Police Service’s handling of the situation during an interview on the Active Morning Show stating how unhappy he is about the situation saying “this borders on breach of security involving students or minors generally who are expressing their right to protest as enshrined in the constitution and if you have a police administration that is meant to protect that right engage in violation, impunity causing harm to protestors then it is worrying”.
“Especially coming on the back of other security breaches that happened in the country like the one in Nkoranza, Wa, Kumasi and other places which further adds to the security breaches and does not help in the building goodwill they need in doing a better job,” Mr Mutaru said
He then expressed worry about the lack of proper deterrent measures put in place to deal with officers found culpable in such instances of breaching people’s rights to which he opined that this has led the to the blot in the image of the security agency in the country.
Laying the challenges of the police in current times to manage crowds to bare, he cautions that “the more we continue to deepen the mistrust between the police and citizens it will get to a point the citizens will take the law into their own hands in dealing with such situations and we are already seeing it in many instances”.
Failure to bring out proper professional policing tenets “we risk building a dysfunctional police institution.” he lamented.
Prescribing solutions to tackling this menace as a country, Mr Mutaru reiterated his calls for a serious sanitization of the Police administration stating that “we have been talking about the structural problems within the police administration and security set up in the country if you have such an institution under the control of political figures in the country they tend to use it as a political tool,” he lamented.
