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The Member of Parliament for Suame constituency and Majority leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah Bonsu has advised the Ghana Police Service not to act to please any government in power.

According to him, the police most often favour a government in power and so members of the party in power often take advantage of that to misbehave.

“The police service must be more vigilant; let’s be honest with ourselves, at the tenure of every government, the police are not too strong on the ruling party and ever since 1992, that is what I have witnessed but it cannot go on. The police should be given that authority; they should not be seen to be playing to satisfy the ruling party…” he said on Citi FM eyewitness news (point blank).

The majority leader was reacting to the chaos that occurred during the by-election in the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency, Thursday.

A simple by-election saw the presence of heavily built and armed security forces allegedly belonging to the SWAT team; a unit of the Ghana Police Service. The fearful looking men, all wearing masks stormed the Bawaleshie electoral area during the by-election and clashed with some members of the NDC. They started shooting into the crowd instead of the air leading to the injury of some members of the NDC. In one of the videos being circulated, a voice can be heard giving the order “Shoot! Shoot!!” while people around start to run for their dear lives. One other casualty of the incident was Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Sam George who was given a heavy slap by one of the officers.

Some reports claim the masked men were NPP’s vigilante group; invincible forces who were coming to stop NDC group Azorka boys from creating mayhem. However, Bryan Acheampong, Minister of State in charge of National Security, says the masked security forces were from his outfit.

Osei Kyei Mensa Bonsu reacting to this condemned the slapping of the Member of Parliament and called on the two main political parties: NPP and NDC to stop the activities of vigilante groups.

“It appears in all by-elections we have these incidents and you to question why (citing kyereponi, atiwa); but the history does not provide any justification. There should be a collective resolve of the top hierarchy of the political parties in this country especially NPP, NDC...There should be a consensus among all the political parties that this should be stopped. Regardless the provocation from the member of parliament; descending on him cannot be acceptable in this modern age…certainly not the best,” he indicated.