Adam Bonaa is a security analyst
International security analyst, Adam Bonaa has urged the Ghana Police to embark on intelligence-based swoops, especially in the Kasoa enclave which is allegedly gaining notoriety for crime in recent times.
He intimated this in an interview with TV3’s Berla Mundi on the New Day show on Thursday, April 22.
In his view, most often the Police organize swoops that usually get people who are not criminals arrested as a result of those swoops not backed by intelligence.
When reacting to recent complaints by some traditional leaders and residents of Kasoa regarding the high spate of crime in the enclave, Mr. Bonaa pointed out that, “as far as I’m concerned, any attempt of arrest and getting rid of our streets of what you call suspected criminals is welcome news. My only challenge over the years, dealing with these type of swoops is that it is usually unintelligent, when I say unintelligent, you know their own data, the police’s own data which they have, suggest, even if you go to the prisons, the Nsawam Prisons and the various prisons we have in the country, we have too many remand prisoners and most of these people are as a result of these swoops.
“I have said that, can we have intelligence-led swoops or intelligence-led arrests? So that you know that A,B,C,D,X,Y,Z are criminals you catch with the evidence, because for criminal prosecution, the game is evidence. If you go to a trial judge and say he’s a criminal, the trial judge will say: show me the evidence, you caught him alleging that he is a criminal in a swoop, you didn’t catch him with anything that suggest that he’s a criminal but I must also say, occasionally they get to sometimes arrest criminals who they are on the lookout for in such swoops”.
“But the truth is that Kasoa has always been there, how many, you know, intel officers in Kasoa? And when you hear Intel Officers, it is not maybe somebody like me, it is turning the traders in Kasoa into intelligence officers, turning the truck pushers into intelligence officers, turning the Kayaye into intelligence officers, that is the only way you can get rid of the bad nuts in Kasoa, where people are trained to spot, identify and report to the relevant authorities. And once that is done, we will get rid of bad people in such neighborhoods,” he pointed out.
Mr. Bonaa went on to assert that, “but if you get up, patrol, national patrols, they drive in a convoy, you swoop in Kasoa, they bundle everybody together, you’ll get somebody like Berla who is not on TV passing by at the wrong time, arrested, phone missing, the person hasn’t memorized any relative’s number, the person is taken to somewhere, Central Region or Accra, bring your relative that will prove that you’re not a criminal, the person is not able to do that, they say we can’t keep you in a police cell, take all of them to court because after 48 hours you can’t keep them there, the court remands them to, maybe the next adjourned date, the investigator or prosecutor who is processing the case is transferred so the docket can’t be found, so you end up in prison for 14 years for doing nothing”.
“And so my point is that most of these swoops is totally, for me, a violation of these people their rights because what they are doing, I have said it, without any apology to our hardworking officers, that’s let’s be smart, let’s use our like the old folks will say, our gumption to be able to process crime areas and get rid of criminals but the way we do it, it doesn’t you know, how many times can they do swoops in Kasoa?” he wondered.
He further admonished the security forces to do their best to protect the identities of whistleblowers and informants to the police in the crusade against crimes, in order not to put them in danger.