Police: we will not arrest people just because you want it

The Ghana Police Service has vehemently stated that they will not be engaged or arrest anyone for any political comments that are not criminal in intention. This was revealed after a crunch meeting between the Police and the two largest political parties in the country, the NDC and NPP.

According to a release by the security agency after the meeting, the police revealed a dedicated established legal team has been established to handle political issues. The team will look at all comments or actions of politicians and advise the body as to whether there is any legal background for the action.

This was revealed as one of two major interventions by the police to handle political matters. The statement said, “The second intervention is the setting up of a dedicated legal team to subject all politically related incidents to legal scrutiny to establish whether there are elements of crime or otherwise before any Police action is taken. The Police will, therefore, not intervene in any situation where there is no criminality involved”.

Explaining the intervention, the police said, it is “a paradigm shift from the practice in the past where people were arrested in the heat of the moment for politically related incidents as a result of attempts by politicians on either side to whip up public sentiments against the Police thereby creating the impression that the Police supports one side against the other. In such instances when no concrete charges can be levelled against such people they are eventually released thereby creating the impression in the public domain as though the Police were manipulated in effecting their arrests”.

Background

There has been a recent increase in calls for the arrest of certain persons for supposed politically criminal comments. The National Youth Organizer of the NPP petitioned the Police to arrest former President John Dramani Mahama for his all die be die comment. He also said the National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah should also be arrested for similar comments.

Meanwhile, members of the NDC including its head of legal affairs Abraham Amaliba called on the Police to arrest Bryan Acheampong, a deputy minister for claiming the NPP will do everything to stay in power beyond 2024.

All these and others were the reasons that caused the meeting between the two parties and the police to set a clear roadmap on what the police will do and not do.