Following the chaos that marred the first day of the Arise ‘Ghana Kuromu Ay3hye’ demonstration, Edem Agbana, a leading member of the group, accused the police of acting unprofessionally.
According to Edem Agbana, the police acted in an uncivilized manner, citing an instance where a police officer threatened to shoot at the crowd amidst firing of teargas and rubber bullets at them.
He disclosed this to the media in the aftermath of the demonstration on Tuesday, June 28, 2022.
“They were not civil because there was an instance where a police officer told me that he will shoot at the crowd and I gave myself to him that shoot me because I am their leader, right there in front of the police service. The rest of the men had to separate us because I told him, he was holding his gun and said [I will shoot at the crowd] and I said shoot me first,” he stated.
Prior to the protest on Tuesday, the Inspector-General of Police, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, told officers assigned to provide security for the Arise Ghana demonstration to treat the protesters with respect and dignity and offer assistance to anyone in need because they are all Ghanaians.
“We should continue to remember that those demonstrators are human beings like us; those demonstrators are Ghanaians like us; they are our brothers and sisters.
“Therefore, we should treat them with all the respect, the civility, and dignity that each and every human being deserves. In effect, we should treat them the way we would have loved to be treated if we were on the other side,” he said.
However, Mr. Edem Agbana, speaking to the media amidst the turmoil, said the IGP was only pretending to be professional on camera but he failed to instil in his men professionalism.
He added that the IGP has become a celebrity IGP who goes around frying bofrot and kelewele but fails to instill discipline in personnel of the service.
“His men have not been civil. All that Dampare said and we have known Dampare, he is a celebrity IGP. He likes to speak nice things to the camera but he acts otherwise. He goes round frying Kelewele and bofrot and all that, that is not his work. He should come and see the unprofessionalism that has been exhibited by his men.
“Some of his men are extremely unprofessional, he must be held responsible,” he added.
The demonstration, which was supposed to be peaceful ended in turmoil after the police claimed the demonstrators, in their quest to use an unprescribed route, pelted stones at them, which made them fire tear gas and rubber bullets to calm the situation.
Though the Arise Ghana demonstrators have refuted this claim by stating that the routes the police were describing as unprescribed routes were false in the sense that they have filed at the court a Stay of Execution, which means their initial agreement with the police still holds.
The leaders of the group (Sammy Gyamfi and Bernard Mona) debunked the allegations that their members pelted stones at the police. They noted that it was some disguised policemen planted among them who pelted the stones just to give the police a reason to unleash brutalities on them and mar the entire demonstration.
The police have since arrested about 28 protesters, yet the demonstration, according to Sammy Gyamfi will continue on Wednesday, June 29, 2022.
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