The youth wing of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has strongly urged directors of the various security services to fortify the Identification (ID) systems of their personnel ahead of the August 29, Supreme Court ruling, to safeguard the nation against any internal aggression.
This was stated in a press statement issued in Accra at the weekend and signed by the party’s National Youth Coordinator, Divine Nkrumah.
According to the party, security officers from the Police Service, Ghana Army, Prison Service, Ghana Immigration Service (GIS,) Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) ought to wear the proper identification to allow for easy identification by the general public.
It went on to state that there seems to be so much consternation in the air hence the PPP’s decision to add their voice.
“We however talk about peace as if it will come from the skies. It will not come from anywhere except from us as a people,” the statement noted.
The statement revealed that as part of the PPP’s agenda to help maintain the peace in the country during and after the election petition, the party has identified “certain serious issues that the nation [Ghana] is inadvertently refusing to pay attention to.”
To this end, the PPP urged Ghanaians and the powers-that-be to place greater emphasis on the role of the security services vis-a-vis how personnel can easily be identified by the public as the country awaits earnestly the Supreme Court verdict.
The statement further said experiences on the ground have revealed to the party that some personnel of the security services, especially in the Police Service, are ‘habitually very reluctant in identifying themselves when dealing with the public.’
“It is a wholly known fact that they even get angry when people try to question their reason for trying to search, arrest or take any action,” it said.
“Our fear is that if the security agencies do not put away their conceit and do the right thing in the precarious times ahead of us, it will allow criminals who would want to parade themselves as security officers to take advantage and disturb the peace of our dear nation,” the PPP statement cautioned.
The PPP therefore called on the security agencies to, as a matter of urgency, put in place mechanisms that will provide all personnel “identification tags with special security features that will enable the public distinguish between fake and genuine security personnel.”
“We are also asking the government to empower the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to immediately commence a nationwide education on ways to identify fake security personnel from the real ones, since there have been several instances where persons with malicious intents pose as security personnel using fake identity cards dressed in fake police and military apparel.
The PPP cited countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, and others, which experienced instances where people aligned to security institutions paraded in towns as official security forces and molested, maimed, and raped innocent and unsuspecting victims.