Dear Mr. Oppong-Boanuh,

I respectfully write to seek your face on a few matters bothering me. But how are you coping during this time of Covid-19 when everything around us has almost turned upside down?

I believe you are strictly adhering to all the precautionary protocols so far. Just that it's difficult for me to say whether that has accounted for your loud silence.

Yes, your silence is indeed loud Mr IGP!

Anyway, have you been reading the newspapers lately? Have you been monitoring the news on the television? What's your impression of the political scene so far?

I talk about only the newspapers and television because I suspect you are keeping a social distance from your men assigned to briefing you regularly.

But that's fine. It is in the interest of your health for these are not normal times indeed!

Sincerely, Mr. IGP, I admire your calm and reserved nature really. Interestingly, I have not heard a paragraph from you since your assumption of office as the head of the police service, so I assume you are a man of few words. You talk less perhaps characteristic of a gentleman.

Mr. IGP, just a glance at your full name tells me you are a "complete Ghanaian". None of your names creates an iota of doubt about your nationality unlike my first name which might disqualify me as a “complete Ghanaian" in today's Ghana.

So, I assume you know very well how the average complete Ghanaian behaves when his masters from both sides are regrouping to loot us again. If your answer is yes which I am tempted to believe after perusing your C.V, do you actually hold the opinion that your usual indifferent disposition will be of any value to this season of political craze?

Please, you have been quiet for far too long. Your predecessors had never been this silent. Even though many of them lost their teeth early throughout their tenure, at least, they barked some hollow rhetorics, but not even a whisper from you.

Okay, since you have decided to leave the stage for the politicians and civil society groups on matters of security, I want to use this medium to brief you on some of the happenings so far.

Mr. IGP, sadly the new voter ID registration centres have turned dramatically chaotic. Exchange of blows over challenge forms have become the order of the day in some polling stations across the country. Cutlasses and knives are brandished openly and freely in the full glare of your men on the ground.

But as for guns and reckless displays by gangsters, please ask Hon. Hawa Koomson, M.P for Awutu Senya East who doubles as Minister for Special Development Initiatives.

Mr. IGP, are your men (police officers) on the ground at all? A week ago, a 28-year-old teacher trainee, Silas Wulochamey was brutally murdered in cold blood in Banda, in the Bono Region. Silas was stabbed to death on his way from school by some NPP youth activists when he was completely unaware of scuffles between supporters of both the NPP and NDC at the voters' registration centre near his residence.

As we speak, the police there say they have made some arrests and released the suspects on bail. They say they are still investigating. Have you heard that news? If you did how does that make you feel? Have you for once imagined if that was your son returning from school? Are you satisfied with how that case has been handled so far?

Mr. IGP, have you also seen the viral video from the Hohoe constituency in the Volta Region where party hoodlums took over a registration centre hitting registrants with plastic chairs and destroyed over 150 registration forms? What have your men actually reported to you about that incident?

And most importantly Mr. IGP, it will be interesting to know your view on the Awutu Senya East incident. You mean you actually licensed a gun in the name “Mavis Hawa Koomson"? Please cross check it for me and let me know after reading this letter.

As reckless as the Honourable Minister's action were on that day, I am particularly outraged about how your men have handled the matter so far.

Do you really mean you sent the police officers to the home of a woman who discharged a firearm without provocation for her to write a police statement in the comfort of her home even though your men literally begged her to return to her vehicle and drive away right after her reckless conduct at the polling center?

And almost a week after unbearable pressure mounted by security experts, the Christian Council and civil societies, what did your men do? Was that an arrest at all? We were told the gun was retrieved from her together with the ammunition and she was allowed to go without any charges pressed against her!

Is that the standard practice?  So did she again admitted that she shot the gun which left bullet holes in someone's gate close to the registration centre? Did she? And she was allowed to go without charges regardless?

Mr. IGP, please have you given your officers any order to treat criminals and hoodlums based on their political party and not necessarily on the basis of their crimes? Please I need to know because the treatment given to Hawa Koomson beats my imagination.

Mr. IGP, it seems you have actually left the scene for a while for a cool corner, and perhaps absorbed in your own thoughts. Please, do you really miss your retirement leave? Don't tell me you have regretted accepting the two-year contract even though you are due for retirement. If you do too, kindly inform me in your reply so that some of us can speak on your behalf.

But in all your actions, kindly remember your colleagues who are on retirement. Would you want their peace disturbed by politicians in their quest to win power? That should tell you that you must act now!

You don't need rocket science to tell you that the 2020 general election isn't going to be as peaceful as the previous ones. It's not naysaying but the sad reality, because coming events they say cast their shadows. Mr. IGP, the peace we have enjoyed under the Fourth Republic is about to be shaken a little, please how prepared are you?

The hooligans who threatened lives at Ayawaso West Wuogon are still lingering in the dark, but mind you, they did all that for only a bye-election! The numerous thugs caught on tape by Manaseh Azure Aweni in the Osu Castle have not been disarmed yet. Certainly, all is not well.

Mr. IGP, as I end this letter with a great suspiration of relief, I pray that the entire nation will hear from you soon as a response to this letter. If for nothing at all, just show us that you are still at post. That alone will send a signal to the goons and hoodlums who have planned to cause mayhem at a snap of fingers of their masters.

Please, don't let them be emboldened by your silence. Show them something small!

Hoping to hear assuringly from you soon. Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Kormi Goodsman.