NPP Condemns Police Brutality on Protesting Law Students -Wants punishment for “Unprofessional” officers

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has condemned the brutal treatment meted out to protesting law students by the anti-riot unit of the Ghana Police Service, describing it as “excessive”.

“While we accept the position of the Police that the demonstrators may have strayed outside the law, and were disrupting the normal usage of the public thoroughfare that passes in front of Jubilee House, we are, however, not convinced that the Police had to resort to such use of force and crowd controlling techniques to manage a crowd, mainly of students,” said John Boadu, the General Secretary of the NPP in the statement released some hours after the protest on Monday, Octobetr 7, 2019.

“The police must realize that, just like every other Ghanaian, they are also subject to law and ought to give confidence to the populace at all times that, in applying the law, they do so fairly to all manner of persons.  In the light of this sad development, the NPP is calling on the police hierarchy to look into the matter and bring persons who are found to have acted unprofessionally to justice to forestall future occurrence of this regrettable incident,” the statement charged.

The demonstration with the hashtag #OpenUpLegalEducation, started at the Law School in Makola at the heart of the capital to the Jubilee House where the protesters were presented a petition to President Akufo-Addo through one of his Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Abu Jinapor.

The students are angry at the draconian policy of the General Legal Council (GLC) to make law career prohibitive for prospective students. This is evident in the massive failure rate yearly.

This year, only 128 students out of the 1,820 candidates who sat for entrance exams passed to be admitted