Saliva sat in my mouth for close to 30 minutes and although I have never been pregnant, I am sure the way I felt on the night of 29th march, is how most pregnant women feel. It was surreal and somehow uncomfortable but that was the extent of my paranoia while I sat in the bucket of our pickup truck.

The spittle had gathered in my mouth because it was the first time I had been among so many people after the outbreak of coronavirus and in my mind, possibilities of the virus entering my mouth were endless.

My day, Sunday, March 29, 2020, begun with a televised church service and by the time the press conference by the information ministry ended, I was heading to the office. My assignment was to follow the security personnel who were being deployed to enforce the lockdown.

Nostalgia set in, except this time, I was a bit fearful, imagining the number of people I will be interacting with, where they must have been and the thousands of people all of them may have come into contact with.

I arrived at the police headquarters at about 8:30 pm, engaging director of Public Affairs, Shiella Abayie Buckman, first for our sister station, Adom TV, exhibiting my best Akan skills before I did the same for Joy News.

At about 10 pm, the nostalgia is almost at its peak, as heavily built men in uniform gather in front of me at the national police headquarters: long boots, slightly rusty rifles and a handful of the men wearing face masks as they are being constantly reminded to observe social distancing. I could understand, it is taking all of us a bit of time to adjust to our new societal set-up.

A long wait for them to assemble, preceded a rather long briefing by the director of operations, DCOP Dr Sayubu Gariba, as he took close to an hour spelling out their duties to them. As a student of summarization, I could identify with the hushed murmur from behind me, indicative of how long the address was taking as it came with more than a few repetitions. As a reporter, however, I understood the necessity to remind a police force which has been called out for brutalizing citizens with impunity in the past, that the operation codenamed ‘Covid-19 Safety’ was more humanitarian than combative.

DCOP Gariba reminded the officers of the exemptions, emphasizing that this is a presidential directive that must be followed to the letter. He also clearly spelt out to them, the extent of force to be employed, if at all necessary. They were to advise first-time offenders, use minimal force on recalcitrant citizens and for criminals who would ignore the fear of coronavirus to commit a crime, they were to be shown absolutely no mercy.

They were to stick to their posts until they are replaced. A rather stern tone reminded them of the need to neither move for food and water, nor nature’s call. A police officer’s job must be tough, I thought but I am sure they understood the terms of engagement from day one and anytime they sang and clapped to their favourite song, ‘I want to be the police, this is the way I wanted to be’.

One of the roles the officers would play is inspecting identity cards and that among others, bring them in very close contact with people. They, like other frontline workers, need personal protective equipment. The unavailability of the PPEs at the time did catch my attention for a brief moment but it was assuring to see some of the officers had taken the initiative to secure face masks and gloves by themselves and even better, was the fact that before the entire team was dispersed, some of the PPEs arrived and were shared among those present. At this point, all other media houses had left, but for me, the determination was to make our audience experience or at least see what the dawn of the lockdown would like.

We started with a ride through the roads in front of President Akufo Addo’s house at Nima. My camera technician and I sat in the bucket of our pickup truck, filming the officers driving in front of us. It was a team of about seven personnel all masked up and looking poised for business. The siren and the flashing lights took me right back to Bimbilla where this scene has been their reality for years – and where I had been embedded with officers on a not-so dissimilar operation. Nostalgia! 

On the dawn of the lockdown in Accra, when it was almost 1 am, people were seated around small tables while table-top noodle restaurants tried to strike last-minute sales. The reactions were interestingly unfamiliar and to borrow the cliché, a sight to behold. Some people took to their heels, others rushed to close up their stalls whiles others only looked on in awe, responding to calls by the officers to go indoors, with reasons why they must stay out to make money.

At this point, I knew challenging moments laid ahead of the men in uniform in enforcing the lockdown; people have still yet to completely appreciate the common enemy of our times: Covid-19. They have yet to come to terms with President Akuffo Addo’s world-acclaimed sentence that we know how to bring back economies to life but we do not know how to revive the dead.

It was apparent to me at this point that the officers also acknowledged the difficulties that lay ahead with their new duties of enforcing the lockdown directives, especially in typically densely populated areas like Nima. They continued with their entreaties in Akan and Hausa for folk to go indoors. It was more of an empathetic prodding than a forceful push for compliance, which made a lot of sense to me.

Our drive away towards Ayi Mensah; one of the demarcated border areas ushered me much deeper into the new reality. Riding in the bucket of our speeding truck made the air beating my face feel like a strong wind. I have not done this in a while and it all felt as liberating as it was a fearful reminder of the changing times and I burst into loud laughter, causing Ankoma, my camera technician, to wonder if everything was ok with me. “Don’t worry; I am OK,” I told him.

One of the first roadblocks we encountered was at Adenta. It was also our first encounter with recalcitrant drivers as a truck full of sand drove right past police officers beckoning them to a stop. They did eventually after driving a few meters past the officers. A stern warning from the senior officer on duty and an apology from the truck driver settled the matter.

At the Ayi Mensah barrier, it was one of the moments I found most surreal; a very busy road is now blocked with no-nonsense looking security personnel who had no ear for excuses. About 10 vehicles were stuck at the toll booth and none of them were allowed passage.

They all made U-turns back to where they had come from - exactly the sort of response needed to call this exercise a success. It seems many had downplayed the lockdown but as many as were turned away, the reality was drummed home. 

Truth is, the security personnel appeared very much aware that their actions on the first two days will go a long way to determine their success in the subsequent 12 days of the lockdown. For me, it was quite an experience. Through it all, I saw police officers determined to use this unfortunate crisis to win public confidence and for the military personnel, it was an opportunity to show the nation that they can be a friendly bunch.

Most importantly, though, I saw two branches of the nation’s security apparatus putting aside their different outlooks to embark on a common mission to defeat an insidious, invisible enemy: the coronavirus.

I believe that if the public co-operates through this lockdown with the joint police and military teams, Ghana does stand a very good chance of keeping the number of coronavirus infections and deaths to the barest minimum.