The President of the Institute for Security and Disaster Management Studies, Dr. Ishmael Norman, has called upon the ad hoc committee tasked with investigating the leaked tape related to the removal of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to conduct all sessions in public.

In his view, holding closed-door, in-camera sessions would not serve the interests of transparency and accountability.

Instead, he emphasized that such sessions could foster mistrust in the entire investigative process.

Dr. Norman stressed that the public has a fundamental right to be informed about the issues afflicting the police force and the steps being taken to address them, as the police service is ultimately established to serve the people.

“Look, everybody in Ghana knows the police system has a problem, and the people complaining are people who should know or should have known. Therefore if you go behind the camera we will already now suppose that this is what is happening there, this is what is happening there, and it’s going to create conspiracy theories about what is happening.

“It is not good. Let the people know what is happening because it is the people’s service, not the government’s service. We pay for Dampare’s salary; we pay for the police officer’s salary.”

Dr. Norman expressed concerns that conducting proceedings behind closed doors might encourage speculation and fuel conspiracy theories, which could be detrimental to the reputation of the police force.

Furthermore, he voiced support for the investigation of the IGP, George Akuffo Dampare, but disagreed with the committee's decision to hold in-camera sessions.

He argued that the pervasive issues within the Ghanaian police system are well-known to the public, and conducting secretive sessions could lead people to make assumptions about what transpires during the investigation.

Dr. Norman dismissed the notion that national security concerns justified the closed-door approach.

In his perspective, the real national security challenge lies in the identity politics at play within the police system, which is a more significant issue than any revelations that might emerge from the hearings.

He pointed out that identity politics permeates many institutions in Ghana, representing a systemic problem that poses a destabilizing influence on the country.

“What national security problem could that be? Already the police service is compromised in a deep systemic way, NPP, NDC and it’s just not the police service. It is almost every institution in Ghana.

“So this is a tip of the iceberg of all that is wrong with Ghana because of identity politics…and it is a very systemic and destabilizing effect in Ghana,” he said.