Calls multiply for police to dedicate resources to search for missing girls

General News on Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Source: Myjoyonline.com

2019-06-12

A security badyst said that calls from the general public to the police for her to devote resources and deploy men to track down the three missing Takoradi girls are admissible.

Colonel Festus Aboagye (Rtd) said the police would use judgment in demonstrating to Ghanaians that their safety was of paramount importance to them.

He added that the calls to the police to find Takoradi's daughters were well done "because of the emotions we all have about girls".

A Nigerian suspect is being held for the abduction of the three girls in the western city of Takoradi in 2018, but the girls have still not been found.

His comment follows reports that the two Canadian women kidnapped in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region last week, were rescued by the police.

Lauren Patricia Catherine Tilley, 19, and Bailey Jordan Chitly, 20, were saved Wednesday night in Sawaba, a suburb of Kumasi.

To date, the police have arrested 10 people related to the kidnapping. They include three Nigerians. Another Nigerian is also on the run, joined JoyNews.

Since then, the Inspector General of Police, David Asante Apeatu, has been criticized for going to Kumasi to help locate the two Canadians.

This, said the security badyst, could "be a reasonable argument to consider."

"While, on the one hand, the IGP did not consider it necessary to go to Takoradi itself, to use its presence to influence the efforts made to find the girls," he said. On the other hand, he found it necessary to go to Kumasi, he said.

However, he wants the benefit of the doubt to be given to Mr. Apeatu, explaining that, in the entire hierarchy of the country's security architecture, it is necessary to deploy the necessary resources to find missing girls.

According to him, there is sufficient evidence to show that the two or more abduction cases, especially those involving foreigners and Ghanaians, are not identical.

Rtd Col Abogye said the case dynamics can not be compared although both cases have received support from Ghana's foreign partners. The dynamic, however, he said, is different, because there are not two cases of kidnapping that are identical.