IGP must answer why Azugu is still at post – Kpebu

Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has demanded investigations into circumstances why the report of the Emile Short Commission of Inquiry as regards the re-assignment of DSP Samuel Kojo Azugu and his Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team at the National Security Ministry has not been implemented.

He said the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), James Oppong Boanuh, must be held responsible for this.

“Azugu and his people were to go back to the [Ghana] Police Service but Azugu is still walking in the National Security premises,” Mr. Kpebu observed on The Key points on TV3/3FM on Saturday, May 15.

“You go there, you will see him. So it is not only ordinary citizens who are not [obeying rules}. IGP is also to blame. When they said that he should take his men back, why didn’t he take them back?”

The Commission of Inquiry set up by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the aftermath of the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election violence in 2019 recommended “the immediate removal of DSP Samuel Kojo Azugu from command responsibility at the Ministry of National Security given his failure to appropriately command and control the SWAT team of which he had charge during the operation at the La Bawaleshie school polling station”.

“It is recommended that he be reassigned by the IGP,” the report succinctly stated.

But a recent detention of Citi FM journalist Caleb Kudah at the National Security Ministry proved that the SWAT team of the Ghana Police Service is still in operation at the Ministry.

This Mr. Kpebu said is even raising hackles within the Service.

“Look, people in the [Ghana] Police Service, they are furious. I have spoken to people in [Ghana] Police Service, they are furious and unhappy about the way we have this National Security thing to grow.”

Watch a discussion on the arrest of Caleb Kudah from the 12th minute of the video below