By Kwesi Yankah
‘Greetings to the IGP.’ Those days it wasn’t a matter of going to Osu to convey greetings to the big boss. It was often, ‘Hello hello.. How is the IGP, she is fine, and the children? They are all fine.’ There was an IGP in every home: your landlord, commander, but also your Inspector General of Police. In their absence we refer to them as IGP: they protect you, but also keep a close watch and shepherd you away from temptations!
Somehow I have kept notes on past police IGPs I met.
First of all, IGP J. Y. Kwofie (1990-96). I once met him through a colleague at Legon; a fine gentleman, and great public speaker. But my pen had reason to reprimand him once, for sportng a ‘signature pot belly.’
Next. Peter Nanfuri, a great character of quiet but confident demeanor. I first met him early 1993 when he was the Director of the dreaded BNI. Lazarus, Editor of Uhuru magazine and I, Editor-in-chief, had been invited to explain a careless remark made in the latest edition of Uhuru. While waitng in his office, I picked up the day’s Daily Graphic. When Nanfuri arrived and saw me reading the paper, he cautoned me, saying anything I saw in his office was confidential and shouldn’t be touched. Its content may be public knowledge; it may be brought from outside, but if picked from his office the content was confidential. I almost melted.
When Nanfuri became IGP from 1996, I quietly mocked his demeanor, as the only IGP who wore an oversized cap, completely out of proportion with his mini head. I had been Legon’s Dean of Students and at that material time, was senior hall tutor: two positions that put me squarely in the crossfire of student-police clashes. Rawlings reigned supreme; student demos in town were rife. If in Accra, the dreaded IG Nanfuri was in the high heavens, with ACP Kofi Boakye representng him on earth. May 1998, Legon students had vowed to hit Accra with a demo; but was it safe? Govt was edgy, the police jittery; but students were excited. In the midst of anxieties, IGP Nanfuri invited student leaders, and scared them out of their wits. Hear him:
‘Students, please don’t tempt my men, for the city has been peaceful in the past six months. Apart from this, the Novotel area where you have planned to converge is full of armed thugs and drug addicts. Who knows, one of them may pull a trigger and if that happens and human blood is spilled, the culprits may be hard to arrest.’ Student leaders stared at each other in trepidation.
Next, IGP Kwaku Kyei; he was the choice of President Hilla Limann. If Limann’s tenure as president was short-lived, so was Kyei’s (1979-81). He was IGP at the early age of 39. I did not know him then, but we were friends from 2000, when he became the live wire and President of the old Vikings of Sarbah along with bad boys like Dua Adonten, Tom Sawyer, etc. From his signature moustache, I could guess Kwaku Kyei’s hobby when he was in the police, though I feared to ask him. As Hall master I myself sported a mini moustache, which was only meant to scare students. Together, IG Kyei and I were at our best during alumni get-togethers and fun soccer games. We joined mixed gender soccer teams with Betty Iddrisu, Esther Cobbah, Gloria Akuffo etc, apart from games with Old Vandals. But the Viking team was special: it sometimes featured two goalkeepers: IGP Kyei and Me side by side.
Next. Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, Acting IGP from January to June 2009. She is the first and only woman to act as IGP. I knew her as a student Viking from Sarbah hall; Elizabeth was cool and well behaved partly from her mixed-gender nurturing in Sarbah Hall.
Next was David Asante-Apeatu, IGP from 2017 to 2019. I knew him long before his appointment as police boss. While he was Director General of CID, he cooperated with us at Legon to oust admission fraudsters that had infiltrated
Legon and were enrolling students with accomplices from within. Together with Apeatu’s men, we also busted student criminals who were protesting new housing policies, and at dawn smeared human excreta in exam halls.
Finally, IGP George Dampare on whom I have poured lavish praise in the past two years. The jubilation from his recent removal was not unusual considering the transformation he sought. His agenda to raise the image of the Ghana Police was simply majestic; and when in July 2023 he gave me the opportunity to say a few words to his Board on my visit, I congratulated them all on the emerging profile of the police. But I have since not narrated one scary encounter within weeks of my visit to IGP Dampare.
Late July 2023. Pretending I was still a big man, I sat behind my driver on the Accra-Tema motorway, trying to make a U turn to join traffic heading to Tema. My driver slowed down, then inched to the left lane and attempted a U turn through a narrow path. Within seconds, a four-man squad of Dampare Boys blocked us midway. ‘It’s an illegal U turn,’ they yelled. My driver was under arrest! In a hurry for an appointment, I poured out profuse apologies to no avail.
I even showed a picture in which I had posed with Dampare days earlier, pleading that my driver would be more careful next time, to no avail. I started openly congratulating the boys for keeping faith with Dampare’s revolution. His vision to build a professional cadre of police, was unfolding before my own eyes. They ordered us to follow them to the Manet Police station near the motorway. We complied. My driver was going to be processed for court alongside other ‘big men’ Dampare had rounded up. My plea with the Commander there continued until he at last cautioned my driver and let us off the hook. We fled never looking back. Come and see speed, as they say!
But lest I forget. Through all this scary encounter with the Dampare boys, a lady quietly sat beside me at the back seat giving advice both in freedom, and in custody until death do us part. It was my own IGP, the most dreadful of them all.
Love you my IGP!
