Issues Here & There: What a shock!
I was very excited when I heard in the news that the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) had handed over a police post to the Kotei District Police Command under the Manhyia Divisional Police Command to help curb criminal activities in the area.
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The university was also reported to have donated four brand new Yamaha motorbikes and a laptop computer to the police to facilitate swift response to crimes and data-keeping respectively.
I was over the moon when I also heard that Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice-Chancellor of the University, had said that the police post was presented to the police to help decentralise security service within the campus as well as complement police efforts.
There was exhilaration in my soul, spirit and body, because the reports about the gesture by KNUST gave me some hope that, in spite of the current economic challenges confronting the country, plus all the difficulties staring us in the face, all was not lost and that there was BIG HOPE for Ghana to move forward.
But finally, when I saw photographs of the police post that KNUST had donated to the police command, I was shocked, disappointed, ashamed, sad, and angry. Yes, I was ANGRY!
Professor William Otoo Ellis led a team from the institution that trains architects, building technologists, planners and all they could do for the Ghana Police Service to maintain security on campus was to get a shipping container, put it under a shed, throw in a laptop computer and other appliances and present it as a police post.
So couldn’t the university authorities build a decent and more comfortable structure for the police? This is Ghana’s premier University of Science and Technology and not a group of small-time traders supporting the police with their widow’s mite.
Some may argue that there was an urgent need for the police to get a station to work effectively on the KNUST campus but hey, let us face it – with all the human capital and other resources at the disposal of the university, they could have built at least two decent police stations within a year or even less than 12 months.
Please, as much as we are poor and indebted as a country, the institutions and people who are in positions to do things to inspire the rest of the population should not disappoint us.
Go to Mauritius, which is right here in Africa and see beautiful police stations and you would love to work for the police service and even die for the country.
We must stop treating our security agencies as bodies that do not deserve the fine things of life, especially when we expect them to protect our fine things as well as our lives.
Somebody should also tell our dear President, “The Old Youth,” Mr John Mahama, that his former boss, Flt Lt J. J. Rawlings, when he was Head of State, jumped into gutters and cleaned them. All he got was “fans” from the people plus front page stories.
Nothing came out of that move, because today Ghana is dirtier than when he left office a decade-and-a-half ago.
The President should push his appointees to work and Ghana will be ok! I believe so!
Catch me here: [email protected] Follow me on Twitter@WillieAsiedu
