There’s a reason Ghanaians hardly believe anything our security personnel say, especially when they try to assure us that we are secure in their hands. People will sooner trust unscrupulous land guards with their lives and property than make the mistake of trusting men in uniform. Apart from shamelessly taking bribes from armed robbers, drug dealers and traffic offenders and letting them go, our security personnel have time and again been involved in nefarious activities to rival the shenanigans of the infamous Ataa Ayi.
How do you trust people like these with anything? The latest news to make you lose a little more faith is that three persons, comprising a soldier, a policeman and an unemployed man, have been arrested for allegedly attacking and robbing some customers of banks on the Spintex Road, Lapaz and other parts of Accra. The names of the suspects have been given by the police as Corporal Bernard Tsagli, a soldier attached to the 37 Military Hospital; Corporal Isaac Amejor, a policeman attached to the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) Unit at the Police Headquarters, and Crosby Ofori, aka Fiifi, unemployed.
Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Accra Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Mr George Alex Mensah, said the police had received numerous complaints from persons who had fallen victim to the operations of the soldier and his accomplices. He said most of the victims, who were accosted after withdrawing various amounts of money from their bank accounts, claimed they were falsely arrested by some men in military and police uniforms on allegations that they (the victims) had obtained their money through fraud. Mr Mensah said one of the victims had reported to the police that four military men in uniform who were using a taxi had dragged her from a public commercial vehicle, claiming they were arresting her for cashing money she had obtained through cybercrime from a bank.
He added that the suspected robbers allegedly collected GH¢4,000 from the victim at gunpoint and later abandoned her at a place. Another victim is also said to have reported to the La-Bawaleshie Police that about 3:30 p.m. on February 2, 2018, four men in police and military uniforms aboard a taxi cab robbed him of GH¢2,265 at gunpoint. Most of the victims said they were robbed after withdrawing money from the Mile Seven branch of the Global Access Bank, while others said they were attacked at Lapaz, the Spintex Road, Abattoir and some other parts of Accra.
Police intelligence, according to Mr Mensah, showed that the suspected robbers sometimes laid the ambush near a bank to monitor their victims, trail and attack them on the road or in their homes.