A lack of public cooperation in relaying information to the police has become the topmost challenge of the Ghana Police Service in the Northern Region and eslsewhere.
This is according to the Public Relations Officer of the Northern Regional Police Command, DSP Yusif Mohammed Tanko.
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According to DSP Tanko, residents in the region have a wrong perception about the police service, a situation he has attributed to the colonial architecture of the service as handed down.
He explained that the use of excessive force as was the case in the colonial days has led to many people not seeing the police as their friends.
In spite of efforts by the Regional Command to change the perception, DSP Tanko said many people still doubt officers’ loyalty to them.
“People even help culprits to escape when we go in to arrest them because they don’t understand the work the police does which is to help get rid of bad people in society,” he noted.
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DSP Yusif Mohammed Tanko was speaking on Adom FM‘s morning show Dwaso Nsem Thursday.
The Public Relations Officer of the Central Region Police Command, DSP Irene Oppong, also cited the lack of information sharing between the public and the police also as a major challenge in her region of operation.
She noted that even though it is the responsibility of the public to help the police in the discharge of their duties, she believes a lack of public education has not allowed that to happen efficiently.
She said her outfit had started a sensitisation programme through communities, lorry parks, among others, to engage the public on the need for information sharing and how well information will be treated”.
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She encouraged the public to take advanbtage of police helplines to give tipoffs by giving information with the use of landmarks.
“The public can reach the police on our 851 helplines to give tipoffs which can help and make our work easier,” she noted.