Ghana Police And The Public

Last week, there was a video of a bus driver and his mate (conductor) beating up a police officer. Apparently, they had stopped in the middle of the road to pick passengers which let to a traffic congestion. An officer who was around saw the situation and went there to offer his services, and upon the driver seeing him, he sped off, nearly hitting the police man in the process. The police man took a motorbike and chased the vehicle on the highway and blocked the bus along the way. He then told the driver and his mate to follow him to a police station, but they would have none of it. They launched an attack on the police officer in the full glare of the public beating him mercilessly.

A lot of people were against such an act and were of the opinion that the people needed to be punished to deter others from following the same trail. A few were sympathetic knowing the behaviour of some police officers in Ghana. They always find fault with drivers and then, tell them to follow them to a police station. Often, their time is wasted at the police station until the drivers pay money to the officers or they are arraigned before court which they almost always lose.

According to the police, the 2 (driver and mate) have been arrested and were taken to court and so far have been remanded in custody. The interesting thing is, the families of the 2, Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), Car Dealers Association and Committed Drivers Association have expressed their disappointments in how the driver and his mate are being treated. Since their arrest, they've not been seen publicly. They had their first court trail without a legal representative and efforts by their families and this associations to see them have all been proven futile. They have not been allowed to see the driver and the mate.

I was starting to feel a bit sorry for the policeman who was attacked because even though, most Ghanaian policemen deserve it, that isn't the way to go. It brings chaos and lawlessness and often, innocent people suffer the most. Also, I believe the average Ghanaian driver and mate won't attack a policeman without provocation. I just don't believe people will do that out of the blue. We still haven't heard the side of the driver and his mate as nobody has been able to see them so we can only take assume that, what the police are saying are true.

I got angry when I saw this video this morning on my friends' status. I don't know what the guy did, but it's still not the right way. Act's like this will cause people to also want to defend their selves and hence, there will be fights like what you saw in the earlier video. It's sad to see what's happening in Ghana when people mandated to protect us start abusing us. How can we ever move forward when there are always acts like this to push us back into the past. Africa is largely religious but very ungodly. You wonder what we learn from all the religions we practice. I'm sad and angry about all that is happening and hopefully, things will get better soon.

_{VIDEOS NOT TAKEN BY ME}