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| COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa |
When Tilapia, 3news’ cartoonist, penciled a beautiful but
thought-provoking art about you, I declined writing an article on the topic he
captured. I felt he told the public whatever I needed to say.
It was about the press
conference you had, briefing the general public on the whereabouts of the
missing Takoradi girls. Tilapia captured you in his piece standing on top of
two buildings saying you [the police] knew where the girls are. In the building
under your right foot were the kidnappers― presumably― attempting to further
obliterate their footsteps as they heard your pronouncement.
“Away,” the kidnappers
said.
Whereas Tilapia’s work
was/is merely an art, it was based on the reality after you ‘generously’ told
the public your seeming gains into the search for the girls.
Dear Maame Yaa Tiwaa
Addo-Danquah, if I am to call a spade a spade and not a big spoon, I was overly
mad hearing you utter those words. Yes! I know that if I were at that press
conference I would have been behind bars by now. I would have asked you where
you got trained as a police officer and whether you sincerely think you know your
job and whether you think you deserve your salary after that announcement.
Which police force in
the world announces they know the whereabouts of suspects/criminals when they
have not arrested them? If it is done in the Americas and Europes, please, let
us leave it to them as they have the state-of-the-art facilities to really
effect arrest. To what extent was that announcement of good use to the public? Would
it not have been ideal and prudent had you secretly dealt with the affected
families by, first, briefing them on the state of their daughters and
cautioning them not to open up to the media on that?
Maame Yaa, if you care
to know, our police force became a cheap bowl for the world’s spit following
that unwarranted announcement. In my estimation, you gave the suspects a free
exeat!
Last week Friday, April
5, 2019, news broke that you, DCOP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Director-General
of the Criminal Investigations Department, had been promoted. According to a
statement that was signed by the Director of Public Affairs at the Police
Headquarters, DSP Shiella Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Maame Yaa Tiwaa and five others
had been promoted to the rank of Commissioner of Police (COP). Others also
jumped from one rank to the other.
My worry here is not
about who was fit for promotion or not as some Ghanaians have expressed. My
worry rather is about how the Ghana Police Service feels awarding and promoting
themselves in the midst of the commotion surrounding the missing girls, the
police brutalizing civilians [journalists in particular], political party
vigilante groups raining terror on citizens among an avalanche of such chaos.
Truth be told, none of
the officers who got promoted would have rejoiced had any of the missing girls
been their daughter or relative. But, here they were all joyous.
Had Ruth Love Quayson,
18, said to be a graduate of the Fijai SHS in Takoradi; Priscilla Blessing
Bentum, 21, a student of the University of Education, Winneba, and Priscilla
Mantebea Korankye, 15, a student of the Sekondi SHS; been any of our
politicians’ daughters, would the police not have gone beyond mere words?
As it stands, I think our
government and security forces must always commend the Nigerian government and
its security forces for brokering a deal in rescuing the Chibok Girls from the
hands of the trigger-happy army of Boko Haram. Our CID, together with the Bureau
of National Investigations [BNI], can’t effect arrest of probably three or five
kidnappers but only locate their whereabouts. That should tell you there is no
room for celebration or whatsoever yet.
Dear Maame Tiwaa, if
indeed you have located where the kidnappers are and you think the police are
not strong enough to arrest them, what about involving our men at the Burma
Camp? Did we not see soldiers displaying unimaginable acrobatics at the 62nd
Independence Parade in Tamale [in the Northern Region] recently? This is the
time we need those acrobatics if indeed the kidnappers are in sight!
I feel like there is a
knife in my heart whenever I remember that news report had it that there were
seven police officers on duty when the kidnapper in custody, Samuel Udotek
Wills, broke jail with a hacksaw. In my article on the issue dubbed “Takoradi
jail break, a case of criminals in uniform” published in January 2019, I called
those officers who were on duty criminals.
I was not surprised
later Mr. Udotek said a CID officer assisted him in breaking jail. Maame Tiwaa,
the fact that the alleged kidnapper broke jail in less than a day after he was
put behind bars should tell you he is one of the criminals. I was mad when the
police were pampering him that he will not talk.
I am getting heated as
I write this piece and, perhaps, I need to check my blood pressure. Nonetheless,
I will leave you a simple plan to really get the criminals arrested after which
you can award yourselves with ranks.
Once you still have Samuel
Udotek Wills in your custody, sit him down and let him tell you where really
his colleagues are. If he shuns your good counsel, get a box of candle, light
one, gently open his nose and drop in it the candle’s hot liquid. He will even
give you information you did not ask for. But, if he still proves stubborn, get
a used bicycle tire, cut a string of it, light it and drop the burning solid at
his back. Please, forget about what the human right lawyers and activists would
say.
Our elders say if you
bite me on the butt, despite the danger of sinking your teeth into fecal
matter, then if I bite you on the head, I will disregard the danger of sinking
my teeth into cerebral matter!
The writer is a
broadcast journalist with Media General (TV3/3FM). Views expressed here are
solely his and do not, in anyway, reflect the editorial policy of his
organisation.
Email: nehusthan@yahoo.com
Twitter: @aniwaba
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