How I wish we have a professional SECURITY architecture in Ghana so that our CORRUPT Police Service will be turned into a Professional outfit. My first encounter with the Ghana Police was in 1969 at Sekyedomase, we had lost our grandmother so my eldest brother, Sgt Boakye R.O. an army non commissioned officer attended from Kumasi. There was a minor altercation between the families that got out of hand. My brother who just played the role of a peacemaker, ended up in cell because the aggrieved faction had paid Police to arrest him. It would take a great deal of negotiations before the Police would listen to our side of the upheaval by then he had been kept overnight at the station. Apart from the intransigence of the Police, we incurred a lot of unnecessary expenses. These are our supposedly peacemakers, protectors of citizens, their rights and their property.

The Ghana Police Service was a professional force prior to independence and even throughout the reign of our first President, Kwame Nkrumah. and gone are the days we could walk into any Police Station, make a report and the Police would offer us protection and investigate whatever complaint one had brought to the station. When Ghana was a one party dictatorship under Kwame Nkrumah, you could not influence the Police on any criminal issue and they worked as a team for the welfare and well being of all meaning Ghanaians. Was it not the same Ghana Police Service that we reported those who spoke ill of Kwame Nkrumah during the young pioneer days? Did we not report those who failed to stand attention when our national anthem was played?

Immediately after the 1966 Coup, the Ghana Police Service changed. They put self above the STATE. They complained of poor employment benefits, accommodation, resources and tools to work with. All over the world, the Police Service face the same challenges. Take the public sector pay in any nation and you would realize that the public sector is never well paid but why do people want to work in those service? God the creator gave us skills and drive and in the developed world, nobody is forced into the POLICE SERVICE as it is in Ghana. United, France, Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and even close by South Africa, All these NATIONS Policemen and women are enlisted by the PASSION,DESIRE AND DRIVE in the prospective interested person desiring to die for our homeland. You do not go to be a Policeman or woman just because you cannot get any job to do.

In Ghana, sensitive and strategic positions all over the public sector is treated anyhow. What scrutiny is in place when recruiting a Policeman or woman? What phycological tests and assessments are there? What background checks are made and who makes them? How are they enlisted? You are recruiting dedicated men and women who should be suited to the profession of a Policeman or woman and it is WHOM YOU KNOW. How much money changes hand from the time the process is initiated until training begin? We sit in Ghana and all we do is talk, talk and talk and you come to realise that 24hours is too small or short for the Ghanaian. I am not a psychological scientist but I can reckon that the actual productivity of every public sector employee in Ghana, cannot be more than 2hours a day or in any given week, the workforce in the Public sector is about 10hours from Monday to Friday. The average in Europe and the developed world is between 35 to 40hours a week.

We fail to be productive so how do we raise the required resources to grow the GDP and thus create wealth enough for the public sector pay to rise and thus raise standards of living. The Ghana Police service by the virtue of the arms they wield, have assumed they would rather work against the national interests as opposed to own self interests and their superiors interest. They wake up in the morning and the plan is not going after criminals but rather working with the criminals for kickbacks. They mount road blocks and even the child in the womb knows what they do. We have all known this but have we as a nation said: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? What is happening now to the Police where criminals are attacking them may be the results of their own clandestine operations with these Galamsayers and criminals.

Nobody in Ghana is well paid. The Policemen and women made a choice to serve Ghana and they must live up to that expectation and serve. They must stop extorting money from the citizens and criminals They were not enlisted to become a law unto themselves but SERVE Ghana with devotion and dedication. The time has come for Ghana to change the recruitment into the various Security service. You charge them money to get them into the Army ,Police, Immigration where do you expect them to raise the money to pay back? We have joined the civilized world so Ghana must behave alike. We need to change the training and recruitment regime. Let all those agencies be open to those born with PASSION,DESIRE and DRIVE to be recruited or enlisted.

How the Ghana Police Service treated me in 1973. I was academically brilliant during my elementary school days. From 1967 to 1970, I was successful for those FOUR consecutive years in the Common Entrance examination but I did have anyone to take me to Secondary school, I ended up working at Kusi Oil Palm Research Institute. In 1973,I wanted to be enlisted into the Police service so was offered the chance to go to Akim Oda to write the recruitment examination and out of the FORTY CANDIDATES that wrote the test, I was number two. They gave me a letter to go to the Police Depot in Accra and I went to Accra alright ,reported to those I had asked to report to and only God knows when they are going to write to me to report for training.