Security Expert and Senior UN Mediation Advisor, Dr. Emmanuel Bombande, has pooh-poohed the claim by a senior police officer that Ghana’s current Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, is the worst to have served in that position.

In the view of Dr. Bombande, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare will rather “go down in history as the best IGP we ever had.”

The security expert said this in an interview on PM Express on JoyNews on Tuesday, September 12, after the IGP made an appearance before the ad-hoc committee of parliament that is probing the leaked tape in which a plot was allegedly being hatched to remove the IGP from office.

When he appeared before the committee, COP George Alex Mensah, the Director-General of the Ghana Police Service in charge of operations, among other things stated emphatically that Dr. Dampare was mismanaging the service and that he was the worst IGP he had ever encountered in his decades of service.

The IGP himself has disagreed with the comment, saying his colleague probably committed a slip of tongue.

Dr. Emmanuel Bombande on PM Express commended Dr. Dampare for availing himself to appear before the committee, and praised him as Ghana’s best IGP so far.

“It is important for people like us to underscore when people say that this IGP is the worst IGP, by suggesting that, he [Dr. George Akuffo Dampare] will go down in history as the best IGP we ever had, and I think that’s important” he noted.

“I am happy that he [Dr. George Akuffo Dampare] accepted the invitation because he is laying the pathway for the democratization of the police space that allows accountability to happen in which the IGP is speaking directly to the people who are the stakeholders of Ghana’s democracy, its security, its welfare, and in that regard I appreciate his acceptance.”

According to Dr. Bombande, the IGP’s appearance before the parliamentary committee must be put in proper context and seen as a collective public gain rather an individual public officer simply responding to so-called allegations against his person.

“I don’t think we should simply reduce it to IGP Dampare responding to allegations. We must put it in context that those allegations were being made in a toxic environment of political fanaticism, in which the allegations in themselves were a conjecture or a machination. Because if they were done publicly, then you can describe them as allegations that the IGP is responding to.”

But not only were they allegations, but they were allegations that were done in a way that is corrosive of the internal capacities and resilience of the Ghana Police Service.”

He said Dr. Dampare’s appearance before the committee helped to redeem the battered image of the Ghana Police Service.

“That is why I appreciate that he [Dr. George Akuffo Dampare] came to the parliamentary committee of enquiry so that he’s not just responding to the allegations, but he’s helping to heal the damage, the corrosion in which people can meet and conjecture, plan and conspire which then in itself is very unhealthy and reduces the credibility of the Ghana Police Service, and makes people doubt how we can all be protected by a Police Service in which among them some will choose this path in trying to undermine their seniors.”

About Dr. Dampare

Following his appointment by President Akufo-Addo in July 2021, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare became the eighth youngest Inspector-General of Police to be appointed since independence, and the youngest since the Fourth Republic at age 51.

He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) degree in Finance and Management from the King’s College, London, University of London, and has two Masters of Science degrees with distinction in Accounting & Finance, from London South Bank University, UK and Business Systems Analysis & Design from City University of London, UK.

Dr. Dampare also has a certificate in High Impact leadership from the Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge, UK, and a certificate in Leadership and Management from the Aresty Institute of Executive Education, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

He is a member of a number of professional associations including the International Association of Chiefs of Police (ICP), International Association of Crime Analysts (IACA), the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA), and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA).