The Executive Director of the Human Rights and Governance Centre, Martin Kpebu, has described as shameful, the fact that Police personnel could not control the rioting youth of Ejura Sekyedumase and had to call for assistance from the Military.
“It means that we are not learning and that’s a shame! It’s a shame on the Police Service. That they allowed this small crowd, that they couldn’t control it and they had to bring the Military to shoot just anyhow, resulting in the death of those two people.
“And that’s a big indictment on the Police Service. It’s such a sad situation that we are not learning. This is a problem we identified over twenty years ago. We don’t seem to be taking any steps to solve that problem. I mean, it breaks my heart”.
In an interaction with JoyNews‘ Benjamin Akakpo on the AM Show on Friday, July, 2, the lawyer, who is also a human rights activist, stated that the Police authorities appear not to have learnt from previous instances of Police violence against unarmed citizens.
“We’ve not learnt from our past, in terms of past incidents of Police violence against unarmed citizens. It’s such a shame that we sat down and allowed this incident to happen again.
Mr Kpebu was commenting on the incident in Ejura, during which two persons were killed and many injured when Military personnel fired at youth protesting the killing of Ibrahim Mohammed, a youth activist on Tuesday, June 29.
“From the Archer Report in the 90s to the Okudzeto Stadium Disaster Report, it’s been consistently noted that our Police are not good at crowd control, so I can’t understand how we allowed this thing to happen again. Because, if you read those reports, they have consistently said that the Police should be trained in crowd control. This small crowd and we allowed this thing to happen?” he queried.
Meanwhile, a Three-Member Committee has been constituted by the Minister for Interior to probe circumstances leading to the protests and subsequent killings in the Ashanti Regional town.
The Committee is chaired by a judge of the Court of Appeal, George Kingsley Koomson. Members of the Committee are; Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College and Juliet Amoah, Executive Director of Penplusbyte, a civil Society organisation.
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