Superintendent Eric Amponsah, the Tema Community Two Crime Officer, has urged political parties to caution and educate their followers against unnecessary confrontations.
Superintendent Amponsah, speaking at the Tema Metro Inter-Party Dialogue Committee (IPDC) meeting, cautioned that the police would apprehend any party followers who engage in acts that could lead to violence in any form.
He stressed, “caution your followers; we don’t have issues with the leadership, but rather the supporters are always giving us headaches.” We don’t want the situation that when we arrest them, you will come to beg for their release.”
He indicated that political party followers, especially those for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), sometimes engage in acts that lead to confrontations.
“We noticed that whenever their flagbearer’s or running mates are coming to town, before you realised it the night before, there is destruction of their banners and posters, which is not good at all; these things bring confrontation, and police are doing a lot of investigations on them,” he added.
Superintend Amponsah said the police have had a lot of engagement with the stakeholders, especially the political parties, spelling out some of their electioneering programmes and activities, adding that so far, the parties in Tema have been cooperative to ensure that there is peace.
According to him, police have done training programmes for the personnel to equip them to ensure comportment and act professionally during the elections, adding that police have also deployed 24-hour security at all Electoral Commission offices to ensure peace at the premises.
He added that they were also deploying police personnel to all political-related activities to prevent any political-related violence, urging political parties to abide by the Public Order Act.
“They should alert police at least five working days so we can also prepare and give them the needed support. Despite all the education and engagement, some of them refuse to notify the police, and before you realise it, there is a big political programme coming on without police. Alert police, so we all sit and plan,” he said.
He expressed worry that sometimes when the political parties notify the police of their activities, they do not add their itinerary and the routes, a situation that makes it difficult to deploy personnel, especially the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), on time to ensure traffic is brought under control during such programmes.
GNA