By Isaac Ato MENSAH
Accra- 18 October, 2018.
The Ghana Police Service (GPS) is not being managed properly; virtually every news item about them is miasma.
This is not the case of the media giving them bad press.
There are a series of bad decisions that have left all of us in a conundrum.
It will be the eighth wonder of the world if David Asante-Appeatu, the IGP himself is not as puzzled as the rest of us.
In the latest reshuffle of officers, Superintendent Cephas Arthur, the former public affairs director has been posted to head the Mamprobi District.
Superintendent Cephas Arthur and 31 others were reassigned on October 15; the announcement came through an internal memo according to news media reports.
‘This posting supersedes the Headquarters posting dated 28th September, 2018,’ was the part of the memo which caught our attention.
September 28.
October 15.
Seventeen days!
Waow…what a shock?
It is usually the case that when organisations are in crisis, they want to change their spokesperson and see if someone else can do a better job of convincing the media and the public.
So PROs such as Superintendent Arthur will suffer such fates; it comes with the territory.
But PR practitioners can only suffer such fates if they reduce their roles to only that of a spokesperson’s.
You can make yourself the self-appointed compliance officer within your organisation.
In our article titled GPS Tracker; Jaleel, Tehoda, Awuni Sighted with Fortitude, we commended police officers Jaleel and Tehoda for showing fortitude in suing the IGP and Ghana Police Service for wrongful dismissal and termination of appointment.
In another article titled This is PR; John Paul II Teaches Lessons in Organisational Communication, we emphasised the importance of the theory of bureaucracy as having evolved to solve existential problems.
Weber mentioned ‘impersonality’ as one of the features of a good bureaucracy.
So when news broke that an Accra high court had found the IGP guilty of contempt of court and will be sentenced on 25 October, we knew clearly that the IGP had been over reaching with respect to his official powers – and this is putting it charitably.
‘He [the judge] said the IGP “wilfully” disobeyed two court orders that directed him to provide security for the execution of another court order that gave the green light for the sale of a 12-block uncompleted flat at Redco in Madina’, Emmanuel Ebo Hawkson reported for www.graphiconline.com.gh on 13 October, 2018.
“The act of the IGP can appropriately be said to be wilful. The respondent [IGP] has failed to discharge the burden required to avoid a conviction and must, therefore, be committed for contempt of court and sanctioned appropriately,’’ Justice Mensah, the high court judge said.
Now, that is Appeatus in the Mix; like his name sake the sound engineer, David Asante-Appeatu, the IGP is mixing a Kpanlogo tune with Jingle Bells and O Come All You Faithful.
In academia, students are taught to simulate or engineer situations and give solutions, but these tunes from the IGP certainly do not mix; too bad for a Christmas Carol.
The Ghosts of Christmases past have come to haunt him; Charles Dickens must be laughing in his grave.
‘It is never the wrong time to do the right thing’, my mentor’s words will always drop in at the right time.
Of course, no one expects the IGP to be jailed; he is expected to apologise to the court and comply with the court and the matter ends.
But time and time again, might as right has been enforced – a distasteful characteristic of banana republics and less than enlightened officialdom.
The judge has used his gavel of moral authority.
Is it not shameful to imagine that when the judge was delivering judgement, there must have been the judge’s police bodyguard standing close by the witness stand?
So we present to you Mr IGP, that same gavel the judge utilised.
Of its symbolic import you are already aware.
We only need to remind you that as the late KB Asante, the venerable civil servant said, ‘Once you are given the title “Your Excellency”, you must not be seen to be doing foolish things’.
Should we not add the titles – Honourable and IGP to the list?
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