Security expert, Emmanuel Kutin, has asserted that if Ghanaians cannot uphold the responsibility that comes alongside our rights, then no one should complain of an abuse of his or her rights in these trying times.
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His statement is based on complaints from some section of Ghanaians saying their rights were abused on the first day of lockdown.
He said this in an interview on Hapoy98.9FM’s Happy Morning Show: “Rights come with responsibilities and if we can’t respect our responsibilities, we should not complain about security agencies violating our rights. We’re not living under normal times and we shouldn’t be talking about rights if we can’t do what is required of us. As good citizens, we should be helping the security agencies do their work and not make their work difficult. Whether we like it or not, every policy has its unintended consequences”.
According to him, the work of our security agencies are critical at this moment as they are also on the frontlines exposing themselves to risk. “We should all adhere to the restricted movement directive. If you don’t have to attend any emergencies, stay at home and keep your family and by extension your country safe”, he advised.
“Look at Spain and Italy today because of indiscipline. If they had obeyed restrictions, their recorded cases of coronavirus wouldn’t have been this astronomical. As good citizens we should channel our energy to educate others to help our security agencies execute their mandate instead of playing the blame game,” he noted.
He reiterated that if Ghananians are not going to obey these restrictions placed on movement, then, no one should complain of their rights being abused.
“The military beating citizens is archaic and I believe they’re not happy doing it, but most Ghanaians are making things difficult for them. This is the time for us to regard rules for we are not living in normal times,” he added.
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Emmanuel acknowledged that the work of the security agencies is difficult, but however, appealed to them to learn from what happened yesterday and do the work with more humanness.
The President gave a directive restricting movements in some parts of the country in a bid to fight COVID-19.
But on day 1 of the restrictions taking effect, some Ghanaians decided to disregard this directive and were met with some form of punishment from the military deployed to ensure public safety.
By: Joel Sanco