PERISCOPE DEPTH
…With Our Publisher
In certain nations, human life matters. In those nations, when even a baby born today dies under suspicious circumstances, or even when it does not die under suspicious circumstances, an autopsy is conducted, a type of investigation is done, to establish why it died, and to forestall similar deaths in future. The intention is to prevent similar deaths in the future. I believe that that is because, in those in those nations, value is placed on human life.
This is to be contrasted to our lives in Ghana. We seem to put less premium on human life. I would illustrate this point with a few examples.
Many, many years ago, former President Jerry John Rawlings (May his soul rest in peace) was personally driving a sports car on the Tema Motorway. He might have been speeding. In any case, he was being chased by some of his bodyguards in a chase car. A trotro driver, unfortunately, crossed into the lane of the chase car, and the car, which was traveling at extreme speed, crashed.
Four of Rawlings’ men were killed instantly.
That night, somebody went into the police station where the driver and his mate were being kept in custody, took them out of the place, and killed them.
No investigations were ever conducted into those deaths. No questions were ever asked as to exactly what happened, how four strong and highly trained men might have been able to perish on the spot from a road traffic crash. Of course, they were speeding, and of course, the fault of the accident was not wholly that of the unfortunate trotro driver. But he and his mate were extra-judicially killed, all the same. They just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Some time back, the Venerable Kwesi Pratt Jr (yes, the same one) used to carry around a list of two hundred and seventy-something Ghanaians (I may be corrected as to the number) who he alleged had been killed or just disappeared during the reign of Jerry John Rawlings. He was often full of lamentations about these unfortunate souls until he suffered a crisis of conscience, and overnight, he decided to let the dead mind the dead.
Many, many years ago, a drug addict was sleeping in his room in New Town, a suburb of Accra, stoned out of his mind. Suddenly, he heard loud shouting and knocking on his door. In a panic, he got up, opened his window, and jumped out. The police were waiting with assault rifles. He was shot to death.
I do not think that anybody recalls this, but some years back (Rawlings was still in control of our society) a group of market women hired a taxi at Dansoman at dawn to go to the market. Suddenly, a policeman rained a hail of bullets into the taxi, with the claim that the occupants of the car were armed robbers. These were corpulent women, tomato and fish sellers.
One or two of them did not die at once. When people living nearby heard of the incident, they rushed to the scene. The mother of one of the women who had not died instantly happened to be among those first on the scene. She could see her daughter in the taxi, bleeding and breathing. She pleaded with the police to allow her to see her daughter, and offer any help she can. She was refused, at gunpoint. The woman died.
I am recalling all these sorry, gruesome, macabre, and sordid details from our history for a reason. That we seem to view life with a sense towards the callous. Until it is us in the spotlight.
Ghana has come very, very far indeed. So far, many people living today have forgotten where we came from.
This is good. This is positive. The purpose of this piece is to drum home the fact that we are not interested in going back to the very dark days.
Recently, there have been reports, happening with increasing frequency, of how some suspects in police custody, end up dead.
A couple of months back, it was reported that a gentleman who had been arrested and was at a police station, had gone berserk at the police station, pulled out a knife, and tried to kill a police officer, and in the process, he was gunned down.
The press release to this effect was issued by my very good friend, DCOP Kwesi Fori, Head of Police Public Relations.
Then, there was the incident in the Eastern Region, if I recall correctly, where it was reported that an armed robbery suspect who had been arrested and was on his way into custody, handcuffed and under control of the police, had somehow managed to get out of the restraints, allegedly grabbed a gun, and tried to shoot the police. If you are thinking by now that he was killed, you are right. The police came and set out all the facts that I have narrated, with the bottom line that he was killed.
Then there are the consistent reports of ‘exchange of gunfire by armed robbers with the police, in which all the ‘armed robbers’ end up dead. This particular type of incident happens with frightening regularity in Ghana. There seem to be more firefights between the police and armed robbers in Ghana, than in New York City.
What has motivated me to write this piece, though, is the recent press release from the Ghana Police Service concerning the deaths of two police officers, who were suspected of being involved with the killing of another police officer.
In a recent press release, the Director-General of Police Public Affairs, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Kwesi Ofori, said that the two police officers were killed in an ‘intelligence-led field’ operation. He explained that the police officers were killed as they led the police to a ‘hideout’ of the criminals involved in attacking bullion vans.
To begin with, modern Ghana has maps. Even in the absence of maps, we have google maps, which can be scrolled down to streets and houses.
In the absence of that, we have ‘surveillance’ and stake-outs. Where the police have in their custody two people who are prepared to share vital information on armed robbers, it beggars belief that the police would carry these same precious informers into dangerous armed situations, and it stretches the imagination, even more, when only the two suspects end up dead after the exchange of gunfire. Were the suspects being used as shields, one would ask.
The regularity with which suspects, particularly alleged armed robbery suspects are ending up dead at the hands of the Ghana Police Service should give all of us some concern.
I do not doubt that some people are foolish enough to engage the police in gunfire. However, it is happening too often, and the suspects are dying too often, for one not to be concerned.
Whilst every support must be given to the police to carry out their duties, the same level of effort must be deployed to make sure that they carry out their jobs professionally and judiciously. Extrajudicial killing is a serious thing, and it can lead to undesired outcomes.
I believe, that if we do not engage our Ghana Police Service, it would only be a matter of time before some unfortunate soul is labeled as an armed robber, and killed. God forbid that such a person should be a prominent person or known to a prominent person.
Let us encourage our courageous police service to continue with its good work. Let us, however, also prevail on them to exercise great circumspection when they arrest suspects because it is a fact that not all suspects are guilty.
(This article was first published in the column PERISCOPE DEPTH of the Daily Searchlight on 23/03/2022. The Daily Searchlight appears on the newsstands of Ghana every working day and is for sale online twenty-four hours a day all day throughout the world on www.ghananewsstand.com).
