What May Have Gone Wrong?
What has really gone wrong? Our current police administration began with a slogan of “A Force for Good!” All will agree that the force lived and behaved according to the motto. This is a force that has some very fine individual ladies and gentlemen whose personal behavior would pass anywhere as an example not only to the rest of the force, but to the community at large. I say this from personal experience and rapport with such officers and other ranks over the years. But the spate of foolish incidents involving the force, and especially its use of physical force has left those of us who had pinned our hopes on the legacy of the erstwhile expatriate Inspector-General Keith Biddle, has left us wondering that something seriously has gone wrong. I don’t know whether the fault lies with the collective leadership, or the bad influence of a few senior officer corps, but things have got to a point where the likes of us have become concerned about the reputation, as well as the future relationship between the force and the civilians that it is supposed not only to serve, but most importantly, to protect.
Some time in 2006 I had the privilege of representing the former Vice President Solomon Berewa at the formal launching of the Lungi Police/Community Partnership. I was very extravagant in my choice of words with which I described our Force for Good. I witnessed a similar ceremony in Kailahun where the former Vice President himself launched the branch partnership. I was thrilled as I listened to the chiefdom Speaker Lamin Gbongay Ngobeh, the Assistant Inspector-General Mori Lengor who represented the IG and to the Vice President himself. Who will fail to be enthralled by the soft spoken Kadi Fakondo now in charge of training?
At one time I headed a Presidential Committee to inquire into and make recommendations about the Police force; other members were the late Commissioner Jenkins-Smith and Assistant Commissioner Frank Jalloh. Some of the brilliant and well informed young men and women who gave evidence are still in this Force for Good. I was particularly taken in by the mental intellect of one officer who appeared to have been the victim of circumstances. I am compelled to keep asking what has gone wrong. Why have the police earned this notoriety of violence against those that they must protect? Worse still why this tendency of trigger-happy law enforcement officers?
On a visit to Western Canada in those days, I was introduced by my Canadian hosts to a former Chief Constable (I don’t remember now if that’s how he was addressed) of Edmonton. His first advice was that the term “force” should NOT be applied to the police as it invoked a connotation of physical force or violence.
I had over the years been interested in the progress of a young man in the senior cadre of the force and I asked Keith Biddle why that young officer had apparently been overlooked in his (Biddle’s) recommendations. He agreed that the young man certainly possessed leadership qualities and also with my use of the phrase overlooked and suggested candidly that the young man had been promoted much too early but still had a bright future for leadership. With all these people still there, why do we have incidents like those at State House, outside the SLPP headquarters, Up Gunn or in Cline Town, in Koidu, and very recently in Lungi, pictures of which atrocities have filled the pages of one newspapers?
One can’t help wondering whether the police do not live with the misconception that ours is now a totalitarian state where the police, who should be the protectors of life and property, have suddenly become the causes of brutality and murder from rampant shooting. Who, instead of acting with impartiality are now known to lean very conspicuously and heavily on the side of the ruling party. As that columnist in the Salone Times newspaper would write, “Ponder my thoughts!”
Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
© 2009, https:. All rights reserved.
