The security agencies have sounded notice regarding their preparedness to execute their constitutional mandate in ensuring credible, free and fair elections by protecting the processes from hoodlums who might invade the space on December 7.
At a media briefing Wednesday, the Inspector-General of Police and Chairman of the National Elections Security Task Force, James Oppong-Boanuh, together with a team of lieutenants drawn from the various security agencies, outlined programmes that the Task Force has put together to manage the security aspects of the voting processes on voting day.
From personnel, through logistics and coordination to monitoring, arrests and prosecution, it is evident that Government has made huge investment in supporting the efforts of the Electoral Commission in rolling out credible elections on December 7.
Background
Following the Supreme Court intervention for reforms after the controversial 2012 Election Petition, the understanding was that we had arrived, and parties needed to simply relax and cooperate using the platform of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to collaborate with the Electoral Commission in consensus building.
Almost eight years on, we are realising that we could be wrong because the leading opposition party, without basis, began denigrating the processes soon after the 2016 elections, with vanquished, disgraced former President John Dramani Mahama leading the propaganda band.
Desperate and confused over his chances when he woke up to the reality that his props within the structures of the EC were crumbling, with Charlotte Osei’s removal sealing any semblance of his ability to conjure tricks, his only option left was attacking the EC and its commissioners day by day.
Plots
The mix of horrendous plots that the opposition National Democratic Congress began to explode in their face when the Sam Ofosu Ampofo leaked audio blew up, dropping clues about the NDC’s intent to use criminals to create a social instability during campaigns and in the lead-up to the December 2020 general elections.
Having sowed the seeds, it began manifesting in their own branch, constituency and regional elections in which their own young vigilantes had their fingers badly burnt.
The next was to attack deft efforts by the EC to engineer processes for credible elections, while observing the COVID-19 World Health Organisation and Ministry of Health (MOH) safety protocols. And when that failed, they attacked the monitoring activities on our borders by the security agencies to ensure that we were kept from the pandemic.
Then they made some more noise about their members being disenfranchised though nobody goes to a registration centre in party colours with members of the registration teams identifying such.
Only weeks into the elections, the propaganda and lies, bloodletting and skullduggery continue, with known NDC kingpins being caught in clearly criminal acts that smell an intention to support chaos during voting day.
Dare not the police
As we would observe in the last couple of years, policemen and women themselves have been under attack for doing their professional duties. Most of the attacks, it appears, have political connections – from attacks on police station and their personnel through breaking into armouries and open gunning down of personnel who are supposed to protect us.
In the face of these attacks and the armed robbery and homicide cases, commonsense should dictate that falling into the hands of the police will be taking too much a risk.
National duty
The more important reason not to provoke the police or security agencies on Election Day, however, is that all of us, including the criminals and their politician paymasters, need a peaceful atmosphere to go about our normal lives.
Beyond that, it is imperative, particularly for our vulnerable youth, to be told that when they are caught, not even the presidential candidate or lousy communicator and party chieftain can show up at the police station to save that criminal.