Editorial: ACP Boakye must be indicted

Information reaching this newspaper is that the Director-General of Operations, Assistant Commissioner of Police Kofi Boakye, is to face indictment – the only tenable solution, The Statesman says today. The argument could have been that there is already a committee set up to probe him so why indict him. But, that argument even falls flat on the mere slab that apart from Alhaji Moro and ACP Boakye, all the people who attended that ‘unholy’ meeting at the ACP’s house are currently under arrest.

This week’s papers have been saturated with the ever-deepening stench of cocaine corruption in the Police force; with officers of the highest level implicated in the saga.

Five key witnesses have now been arrested, from evidence adduced at the Justice Georgina Wood Committee, set up to probe the disappearance of 77 packages of cocaine from Tema Harbour last November, with a street value put at $230 million.

The evidence against them includes a secretly-recorded conversion which took place on the premises of ACP Boakye in May. Gathered under a tree in the Director-General’s compound, Kwabena Amaning, aka Tagor, Alhaji Issah Abass, Kwabena Acheampong and Kwadwo Ababio met with the ACP to discuss the missing narcotics.

The voices of all four arrested suspects, as well as the ACP himself, are clearly audible on the tape.

ACP Boakye has admitted his involvement in the meeting, although he denies responsibility for the taped conversion, which the Committee yesterday transcribed in camera and which has not yet been made public. He says his meeting with the drug-smuggling suspects was part of an undercover scheme to solicit information about the missing narcotics. He denies any knowledge of the whereabouts of the cocaine stash, and any criminal involvement with the flourishing drug trade in this country. His intentions were merely fact-finding, he claims; furrowing for information about the record disappearance of such huge quantities of the illegal substance.

Nonetheless, his name remains shrouded in suspicion and doubt: the man directly in charge of police operations, of maintaining law and order in this country and stamping down on crime, himself implicated at the centre of the biggest drug-running scandal this country has ever seen. The Ghana Police Service, already tarnished with allegations of indiscipline, incompetence and corruption, is now accused of rot at its very core.

Whatever the claims of ACP Boakye, his entanglement with the case is irrefutable – with concrete evidence firmly struck against his name. Maybe his intentions were honest; his involvement wholly above the law. So far, however, his exact motivation and level of involvement have yet to be proven, and until such a time when these can be clarified, ACP Boakye must be made to step aside. Indeed, even the Director-General himself seems aware of his position, supporting moves for his indictment until his name can be cleared. He has said he is prepared to lay down his truncheon to clear his name. In fact, he claims he longer feels comfortable wearing the uniform before his name is cleared. Calls for heightened police crack-downs on drug smuggling and organised crime, more rigid enforcement of law, more rigid law itself, have dominated newspaper editorials this week. Now, The Statesman calls upon the Police Force to set a new precedent by coming down hard on one of its own. The Police Council must act on this.

Because an organisation which stands for law and order, integrity and truth cannot and should not be run by a man whose own conduct has been brought under such serious doubt. What kind of example would this be setting for the rest of the nation?

Already, the name of the Police in this country is in serious disrepute. If the Police Service is serious about rectifying its reputation, as well as stamping out drug-running and organised crime, then it must first come down hard on itself: there is no place for suspicion, no place for doubt, in an organisation which is mandated with eradicating crime.

To maintain ACP Boakye at post as head of Operations at this time would give a very bad impression of this country’s commitment to fight narcotic crimes. As Director General of Operations, ordinarily he would have been aware of the arrangement to arrest the five suspects at the Wood Committee Thursday. In fact, those who made the arrest could be described as his men.

Ghanaians made a lot of noise about the decision by Capt Nkrabea Effah-Dartey (rtd) to defend drug suspects after immediately serving as Chairman of the Narcotics Control Board as Deputy Minister for Interior. But, that was merely an ethical issue, which could be argued one way or the other by virtue of the cab rank rule which guides lawyers in their duty to defend all manner of suspects. But, the case of ACP Boakye being at post raises serious fundamental issues about the integrity of the police service and their operations at the moment.

For the sake of his known extra-ordinary exemplary record as a crime-buster, we hope that he is genuinely exonerated. But for now, at least for the sake of the investigation, he must temporarily be relieved of his duties.