[ 2016-11-24 ]

Police can’t overrule pockets of chaos during elections – Cephas Arthur
The Ghana Police Service is ready to ensure peace
during the 2016 elections, but cannot overrule
pockets of violence, the Public Relations Director
of the service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur has
stated.

According to him, the police were ready, the
moment the Electoral Commission announced its
readiness to conduct the elections slated for
December 7, 2016.

Speaking on Starr 103.5 FM’s personality profile
programme, Starr Chat, Wednesday, Supt. Arthur
said the police is busily picking intelligence
that would help it dilute any form of chaos that
may pop up during the elections.

“Intelligence is the pivot of police work,” he
told Starr Chat host Bola Ray during an explosive
interview that exposed the service’s
unpreparedness in case of any eventualities, when
the emergency numbers for the polls were called by
producers of the show, to ascertain his claim of
readiness.

He added: “If we are able to have a very strong
intelligence apparatus and you are able to pick
intelligence…pieces of information around,
assess them, then you are half way through
policing.”

“So, the first thing we are doing to ensure that
we are able to provide protection and keep the
security and the peace that we are having is to
pick lots of intelligence, synthesize them and see
whether it would help us to keep the peace,”
said Mr. Arthur.

He said intelligence officers had been sent to
zones identified as hotspots to pick up
intelligence so that “we can all create a more
peaceful atmosphere before the elections.”

Asked by Bola Ray that “so, you can safely
assure Ghanaians that all is well, your men are on
the ground [and] that we have nothing to worry
about or to fear?”

He replied that “very much so. Expect that we
are in a human society and irrespective of the
kind of the stringent measures that we put in
place, some miscreants might want to test the
resolve of the security agencies.”

The moment of embarrassment came when he was asked
whether the police has any emergency numbers in
case of any eventualities before, during and after
the elections, he answered “yes.”

But when the numbers where dialed they either
failed to go through or went answered, a situation
he described as embarrassing.

Stammering to explain the reason behind the lack
of answering of the calls, he said it might
probably be due to "technical" hitches.

Source - Starrfm

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