Security services have discharged their mandate with professionalism - Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has disclosed that the "police, military and other members of our security services have discharged their mandate with considerable professionalism" due to the two-weeks lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Ghana.

The first days of Ghana's partial coronavirus lockdown have seen allegations of unnecessary brutality and violence by soldiers.

Social media had been awash with videos of security forces brutalising civilians allegedly found to be flouting the lockdown directive.

There is also a call by Ghanaians on the government for oversight and the protection of civil liberties.

The Ghana Armed Forces have denied that its personnel was the ones captured in some videos circulating on social media.

The Armed Forces in a statement said checks reveal that most of these videos are old incidents that are unrelated to the ongoing exercise.

However, the President in his 5th address to the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic praised the security services for exhibiting professionalism in their duties.

"Reports I have received so far indicate that the police, military and other members of our security services have discharged their mandate with considerable professionalism," he said.

He stated that originators of fake videos of alleged brutality by members of the security agencies will be tracked.

He said, "In the very few instances where members of our security agencies have employed the use of excessive force against the citizenry, in enforcing the restrictions on movement, the Inspector General of Police and the Chief of Defence Staff of the Armed Forces have taken steps to investigate such incidents, and, they have given me the assurance that those found culpable, will be duly sanctioned."

He noted: "I am extremely disturbed by the actions of a few, unpatriotic persons, who are deliberately passing off and circulating old videos of alleged brutality by members of the security agencies, largely of foreign origin, and presenting them as though they were new incidents by Ghanaian security personnel, which have occurred during the course of this past week. It is sad, it is unfortunate, and it must end.

"We should all be in this fight together, and there is nothing to be gained with widespread fabrication and distribution of such videos, whose sole aim is to create discontent and undermine the trust of the population in the men and women of our security services. Who gains from such conduct? Nobody in their right senses! The law enforcement agencies are determined to locate the originators of these anti-social acts."