Re-Row Over New Promotions in Ghana Police Service

– Asante-Apeatu Does Not Deserve Any Promotion

There is an Akan proverb that says, “When you are eating the hand of a monkey, take a look at your own hand”. Another one also goes like this, “The cane that was used to whip Baah would one day be used to whip Takyi”.

When the New Patriotic Party (NPP) came into power in 2001, the NPP government implemented the worst form of indiscipline in the Ghana Police Service. The Ghana Police Service before Ex-President J. A. Kofuor and the NPP came into office had a very strong and highly disciplined leadership but that enviable hierarchy was dismantled by the NPP government.

It is interesting to hear that Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), David Asante-Apeatu is whining that he has been ignored by the Police Council and has not been promoted from DCOP to Commissioner of Police (COP). Oh! What a world we are living in. We are all hypocrites.

DCOP David Asante-Apeatu started his career in the Ghana Police at the Police Forensic Laboratory (CRIME LAB) and then transferred to the CID Headquarters. At the Crime Lab, Asante-Apeatu worked under an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP).

When the NPP came into power, David Asante-Apeatu was then a Chief Superintendent of Police, and the next rank he could have been promoted to was Assistant Commissioner of Police, but because politicians can change a woman into a man, and a man into a woman without going through any medical processes, Asante-Apeatu was frog-jumped and promoted from Chief Superintendent of Police to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police. To make matters worse and deepen indiscipline in the Ghana Police Service, Asante-Apeatu was appointed the Director-General of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service. Meanwhile, there were more seniors in rank (Assistant Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, and Commissioners) who were more than qualified to be the head of the CID but the NPP government overlooked them. Can you imagine, the situation when the Assistant Commissioner of Police who was in charge of the Police Forensic Laboratory and Asante-Apeatu’s senior in rank now had to report to him (Asante-Apeatu) as the boss, because administratively, the CID boss has oversight responsibility over the Crime Lab? In other words, the head of the Crime Lab under whom Asante-Apeatu served as a junior rank had to say, “Yes Sir Yes Sir” to Asante-Apeatu. What kind of indiscipline was this? What made the whole thing strange and ridiculous was that, hitherto NPP’s assumption of power, most of the Schedule Officers who formed the top hierarchy of the Ghana Police Service with the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) were of the rank of Commissioners of Police (COP). There was the Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration, Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations, Commissioner of Police in charge of Welfare, Commissioner of Police in charge of Technical and General Services, Commissioner of Police in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) among others.

In order to cover their evil plan and not to ridicule and demean the office of the head of the CID and also to put DCOP Asante-Apeatu at par with the other Schedule Officers who were all Commissioners of Police, the NPP government re-designated the positions of the Schedule Officers and called them Director-Generals. For example, the Commissioner of Police in charge of Administration was re-designated as the Director-General in charge of Administration, the Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations’ position was also changed to Director-General in charge of Operations, and so on. So Asante-Apeatu, a political Deputy Commissioner of Police, was decorated as the Director-General of the CID.

For David Asante-Apeatu, a Chief Superintendent of Police to be promoted beyond the rank of Assistant Commissioner to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police above his seniors in rank and superior officers, and also to be appointed as the boss of the CID by the NPP government, he should have known that the time would definitely come when he would suffer the consequences. Why is he now trying to use the press to fight for what he does not deserve? When he was promoted, his course mates who were of the same rank as Chief Superintendent of Police were left behind. Did they cry wolf? Did they whine through the press? I don’t think David Asante-Apeatu deserves any promotion now to the rank of Commissioner of Police. He should be made to mark time to wait for his course mates to also reach that enviable rank so that they all can be promoted at the same time. He is even lucky that the NDC government has kept him at the Police Headquarters. He should have been seconded to any of the Public Services or the Ministries. He should wait for his criminal bastards, NPP, to come back to power, so that they can make him the Inspector-General of Police. They have done it before, so they can do worse than that.

As for the other officers who are due for promotion to the rank of Commissioner of Police but have not been promoted, I think the Police Council should consider it as a matter of urgency and give them what is due them. I mean, Mr. Stephen Andoh Kwofie, the Central Regional Commander, Mr. James Oppong Boanuh, Police Commissioner to the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Mr. Frank Adu-Poku, Director of Services, and Mr. Patrick Timbillah, the Ashanti Regional Commander. As for Asante-Apeatu, he can rot in hell. When he was chewing the monkey’s hand little did he realize that monkey’s hand looked exactly like his (Asante-Apeatu’s) hand. The cane that was used to whip Baah is now being used to whip Apeatu.

By Attah Kwabenah