From bread hawker to 1st female CID boss; story of DCOP Addo-Danquah

Recycling old newspapers is an age long activity practiced across the globe no matter where one comes from. Some of the varying uses include beddings, window shields, food mats, toilet papers among others; as such it was no surprise that it found its way being used as a bread wrapper by a hawker.

This time however, it became a stepping stone for the first female Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department in Ghana.
“Those days that I was selling, one of the newspapers I was wrapping bread for someone I saw the police advert that they were recruiting as I was wrapping bread. So I kept that paper and I applied” she recounted.

Narrating her police enlistment ordeal

With the love and passion she has for police, The CID boss remembered walking all the way from Achimota to Tesano to join a long queue to submit her form and go through vetting.

According to her, when it got to her turn, she was sacked because of her height and was told could not meet the police standards but she never left the police premises after she was disappointed. Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, then met her ‘angel’ , Mrs Jane-Christine Donkor the first female Commissioner of the Ghana Police Service who asked her to handover her documents and gave her the opportunity.

“The enlistment day I took a car from Konongo and came to Accra. The person who gave me direction said Police depot is near Achimota. So I stopped at Achimota, and I think it was somewhere St Johns thereabout. So I walked all the way from St Johns to Tesano… That was my second time of coming to Accra. So I came with my O’level. When I got there the queue has formed. When I joined the queue and it got to my turn and they took my measurement, They sacked me. They said my measurement was not up to 5’4, so I should go.” she narrated.

“When they said I should leave I didn’t go. I stayed there. Yes, I was disappointed… The Chairman of the Committee doing the enlistment who became the first female Commissioner of the Ghana Police Service, Mrs Jane-Christine Donkor called me and I will never forget her. She gave me the opportunity. She had observed that I was still standing [around] after they told me to go. She asked me ‘why are you here? I remember we said you are not up to the height so go!’ And I said [please] Madam, ‘I really want to be a police woman’.”

“Then she asked for my results slip. She looked at it and then she told the team members they should allow me to go and write the exams. That was how come I became a Police woman.” the CID Boss recalled.

DCOP Addo-Danquah in the interview also refuted claims that she is related to President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, noting that, the ‘Addo-Danquah’ is her husband’s name and her husband who is a lecturer at UCC French Department is not related to the President in anyway.