Police Use COVID-19 As Convenient Excuse To Damper Planned #FixTheCountry Demo

In a classic exhibition of the widely reported institutional incompetence that the #FixTheCountry protestors have planned to demonstrate against, the Ghana Police Service has said that it cannot provide security for their planned demonstration as required by national statutes.

The Head of the Public Affairs Unit of the Accra Regional Police Command, DSP Effia Tenge, claims the Police cannot allow the demonstration scheduled for May 9 because it could potentially worsen the spread of the COVID-19 infections.

“The police will not be able to provide the necessary security looking at the spread of Covid-19 and the kind of dangers that it poses to members of the public should they attend this demonstration,” she told Accra-based Joy FM Tuesday.

The Police’ position has since been communicated to the demonstration organizers.

Effia Tenge also told Joy FM the Police is prepared to go to court for an order to back its position to disallow the protest.

The FixThe Country Movement had intended to march on May 9 in protest of what it says is institutionalized incompetence in the country.

The date for the march was chosen to also commemorate the killing of a number of Ghanaians at the Accra Sports stadium during a clash between Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak.

In a letter to the Police serving notice of the demonstration, the organizers had also explained the demonstration was meant to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Kume Presko demonstration of 1995 led by current President Nana Akufo-Addo.

Coming in the wake of the conversation about the culture of silence that the Akufo-Addo government is perceived to have instituted, the march would have been an exercise in riding the tide of a new outspokenness from the culture of silence.