The police administration has conceded that it erred in its handling of the clash between the supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the residence of the flag bearer of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“Procedure wise, the Inspector-General of Police has updated that the police erred,” the Nima Divisional Police Commander, ACP Vance Gariba, announced at a Town Hall Meeting on “Making Ghana’s 2016 elections peaceful – The role of stakeholders” in reaction to a question as to why the police seemed helpless during the incident.
Organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa, the meeting was addressed by representatives from the Electoral Commission, the National Commission for Civic Education, the Ghana Police Service, Representatives from the National Chief Imam and the Christian community.
Mr Gariba said, however, that “that does not debar the police from investigating any criminality in relation to that”, adding that investigations were currently on-going at the Police Headquarters.
He explained that the police did not anticipate the large numbers involved, because the police thought it was the normal keep fit exercise, only to realise that “it was a regional keep fit exercise and were overwhelmed by the numbers.”
He noted that the police handled the situation professionally to prevent casualties, saying that if the police had used force such as throwing tear gas or water cannon, “the May 9 disaster would have occured.
“If we had shot tear gas or used water cannons, considering the crowd that we had there, I can assure you that we would have counted a lot of dead bodies right now and I don’t think that is what we wanted,” he further explained.
The commander, therefore, advised the public to be circumspect and also laud the police when they exhibited professionalism in the discharge of their duties.
He alleged that when the incident happened, the police were denied access to the residence of the flag bearer, “but early on, the media had been granted access and a press conference was organised on the premises of the crime scene.”
Mr Gariba said he was not happy that during the press conference, the media were told of broken bottles and stones pelted onto the premises.
“I expected the media which covered the press conference to have shown us the pictures, the footage of all those bottles and stones including the posters of Nana Akufo-Addo that were ripped off from his wall,” he said.
Mr Gariba said to ensure balanced reportage, he expected the media to present the footage during the press conference and juxtapose it with the footage of the crime scene when the CID officers came.
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