The Ghanaian nation-state spent billions of old cedis on the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), during the tenure of President John Adjekum Kufuor. At a number of the sittings of the NRC (which sat between 2003-2004), the nation heard harrowing stories of the abuse of civilians, by some of the personnel of our nation's security agencies.
From the many reports of allegations of the continued abuse of civilians by personnel of those selfsame security agencies across the nation, it is pretty obvious that no useful lessons were drawn from those reported incidents of the abuse of civilians by the security agencies, during the sittings of the NCR. That is a real pity. In that sense it was a great disservice to Mother Ghana.
Clearly, most of the personnel of the security agencies still don't understand the importance, in a democracy anchored on the rule of law, of respecting the individual human rights of Ghanaian citizens accepted universally as basic human rights for all of humankind - because no such inculcation in them of such democratic values takes place during their training.
And since one doubts that any democratic values, such as showing respect for the basic human rights of the citizenry, are included in the training courses for the personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Customs, Excise and Preventative Service (CEPS), of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), and the Ghana Prison Service, why must we be surprised that they are still abusing civilians in what is a democracy in which the rule of law apparently prevails?
Essentially, in addition to speaking truth to power, journalists in our system perform an important function on behalf of society: at great risk to their lives, they play a watchdog role by shining their collective spotlight on our system to hold our ruling elites to account, and to ensure that the checks and balances in the constitution designed to ensure that limitations placed on the powers of the executive, legislature and the judiciary by the constitution, work properly at all material times, so that tyranny does not reappear in Ghana ever again. That is a critical role by all standards.
It is therefore intolerable to continue hearing news reports exposing security agency personnel who assault media professionals. The latest such news report has it that an employee of Multimedia Limited, a Mr. Latif Iddris, who is apparently a member of the press corps covering the ministry of lands and natural resources, was allegedly assaulted by a number of police officers (on 27/3/2018). Figuratively, those indisciplined and unprofessional police officers were mounting an attack on Ghanaian democracy.
We are all aware that the vast majority of policemen and women in Ghana are professional in their attitude and always show respect for the civilians they interact with - for whom it ought to be pointed out they provide security day and night at great personal risk to their own lives all year round. That is the more reason why the few bad nuts amongst them must be rooted out of the Ghana Police Service whenever they are exposed by the public. They do not deserve to serve in it. Period.
For that reason, this time round, the media in Ghana - spearheaded, one hopes, by the executives of the Ghana JournaIists Association - must demand an immediate investigation into allegations that Multimedia Limited's Latif Iddris was unjustifiably assaulted by police officers at the headquarters of the CID without any provocation whatsoever.
If the allegations are found to be true, then the Inspector General of the Ghana Police Service, Mr. David Asante Appeatu, must order the immediate interdiction (leading to their eventual dismissal) of all those police officers from the Ghana Police Service, and ensure their prosecution for egregiously assaulting Latif Iddris at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service. Enough is enough. Haaba.
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