Professor of Political Science at the University of Ghana Ransford Yaw Gyampo says it is only a “palpable display of mental dementia” for anyone to describe the current Inspector General of Police (IGP) as the worst in the history of the Ghana Police Service.
For him, Dr George Akuffo Dampare is doing a good job “and we must not sit down when people are beginning to run him down”.
Prof Gyampo expressed these sentiments on Saturday, September 2 on The Keypoints on TV3/3FM.
The sentiments follow a description of the IGP on Friday, September 1 as the worst by the outgoing Director General of Operations of the Service, George Alex Mensah, in his 31-year service.
“What I said [on Thursday], if you give me the chance today I will say so again,” COP Alex Mensah indicated on his second day of appearance before the ad hoc committee investigating the leaked audio recording about the IGP.
“He is not managing the [Ghana Police] Service well. For me, for the 31 years that I have been in the Service, I can tell you he is the worst IGP we have ever had.”
It is this Prof Gyampo disagrees with.
“I trust in the competence of people like [Builsa North MP James] Agalga and other members of the committee to be interrogating the key issues and I believe that they will be able to do a lot of service to Ghana by coming out with findings and recommendations that will help unravel some of these things saddling the police.
“But I believe that any description of the current IGP as the worst in 31 years in my view is a palpable display of mental dementia.”
He cited how Dr Akuffo Dampare has ensured police visibility and not sitting in the comfort of his office but “getting into the nitty gritty of things”.
“You are talking about an IGP who is demystifying the office of the Inspector General of Police by bringing himself down to the ordinary people to be able to interact with him. You are talking about so many things.
“This man said he has been in Police Service for 31 years,” he observed, saying it is only the current IGP who has been bold enough to arrest government officials when they violate traffic rules, for instance.
“So, if someone does all these things that were not being done, if somebody has the courage to arrest a member of Parliament of a regime of a political party in power for violating a traffic offence and you describe him as the worst of policing in the history of Ghana, I am saying, to be charitable, that this description is a display of mental dementia and I don’t want to say further.”