Government to investigate alleged brutality on police officer

THE government will conduct full-scale investigations into the alleged brutality meted out to a police officer at the Flagstaff House, the Minister of Information, Mr Mustapha Hamid, has said.

He said the tenets of constitutional democracy frowned on such brutalities, especially when they were alleged to have occurred at the seat of government.

"Thorough investigations will be conducted to ascertain the facts of the brutality if, indeed, it happened, because we live in a democratic country," he said.

Visit

Mr Mustapha gave the assurance when he visited the Daily Graphic newsroom as part of a courtesy call on the management of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) in Accra yesterday.

He was accompanied by Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, the Managing Director of the GCGL, some members of the GCGL management and officials of the Ministry of information.

 The visit formed part of a familiarisation tour of media organisations by the minister to ascertain the operations and the challenges facing those organisations.

The tours are also meant to build a cordial relationship with the media as a measure to facilitate effective communication on governance issues.

Narrative

A video had gone viral on social media and sections of the mainstream media suggesting that a police officer at the Presidency had been brutalised by some unidentified men on the premises of the Flagstaff House.

The incident reportedly happened on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s first day in office as President after his inauguration on January 7, 2017.

 In the video, the police officer, identified as ASP Nanka Bruce, had to seek refuge in a police vehicle to avoid further molestation by his attackers.

The police officer, who was believed to be part of the guards at the Flagstaff House during the John Mahama administration, was stopped by an armed military officer and brutalised, forcing the police officer to run for his life.

The three-minute video showed senior police officers struggling to restore order, but to no avail.

Reactions

Since that incident, social commentators and political activists, especially from the other side of the political divide, have called for full-scale investigations to unravel the circumstances surrounding the alleged brutality.

While giving the assurance that effective investigations would be done on the issue, Mr Hamid expressed reservations about the manner in which the tape alleging the brutality was put into the public domain.

"It is wrong to send a tape about happenings at the Flagstaff House to the public. So our investigations will be comprehensive and will include all those angles," he said.

He indicated that no stone would be left unturned to get to the root of the matter.

Meanwhile, the Police Administration has indicated that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Police Service had commenced investigations into the matter.