Denigration of political parties: let political parties wash their hands of police recruitment – Kankam Boadu

David Kankam Boadu, a founding member of the ruling New Patriotic Party, hailed the efforts of President Akufo-Addo to dissolve party militancy and militia phenomenon across the country, especially within the space policy.

But he added that while the president was there, all the other actors and stakeholders had to invest to help uproot the chancre that forbids harm to a peaceful nation like Ghana.

He added that the police, in particular, had to defend their integrity and conduct their business in a professional manner to regain the trust of the general public. Political parties in power had to stop telegraphing the commitment of their supporters to the police.

Kankam Boadu justified his accusations against the police and told Graphic Online that the basis of party militancy in Ghana dates back to the Rawlings era, when militias were created to do the work of the regular police, which is trusted in the regular police on the part of political parties who felt the need to "take their destiny in elections in their hands".

In the same vein, he stated that the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress had made it a crime to recruit police officers into the police service when they were enlisted, which, according to all calculations, amounts to perpetuating the same vigilantism that the country now hates.

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Despite annual recruitment exercises, the ratio of police to the rest of society remains very low and instead of organizing individuals to provide security, the country should agree to limit the size of the police force.

"If a policeman is a policeman because he has been placed by a political power, will he not be more sensitive to this authority than to anyone else? If the police officer must look over his shoulder before making a decision, where is his professionalism? If I managed to get by, I would say that we should eliminate people who are appointed to political positions in the police service and allow them to act professionally. This is how we will succeed, "he said, adding that some police officers wore T-shirts of political parties in their uniforms.

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According to the ex-president of the NPP, Ghana is paying a heavy price for making political entities security institutions sufficiently strong to protect us. "Why can not the police, the military, the National Investigation Bureau, the prisons, the immigration department, the fire department and the CID protect us all?

"I urge the President, the IGP, the CDS, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of the Interior and all actors responsible for our security to start employing Ghanaians and putting a term to their political commitment. All individual institutions should start seminars to sensitize their forces to love Mother Ghana instead of political parties. They must remain neutral and support everything the president does to put an end to activism. If men in uniform insist on flirting with politics, I can badure them that they will lose all the trust and respect that society gives them. "

Kankam Boadu insisted that the police, once left alone, could do its job professionally, pointing out that its recent effective management of security for the presidential primary of the Democratic National Congress, although the party's secretary general, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, who has publicly stated that the party does not trust the police, was clear evidence for anyone who doubted police skills.