Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Dr. Sayibu Pabi Gariba, Director of Operations, Ghana Police Service, says security for this year’s election will be “robust and decisive.”

“Security for the 2020 election will be robust. It will be decisive, ruthless,” he said, urging the public to abide by rules and regulations governing the polls.

DCOP Gariba said this at a roundtable discussion on preventing election violence before, during and after the 2020 general election.

The discussion, organised by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and the National Peace Council, was on the theme, “Let’s crack the whip”.

DCOP Gariba said the Police had started planning and training to promote peaceful, free, fair and transparent elections and called for support from all stakeholders.

“We are poised to do the job. Our major challenge is vigilantism and we call for support from all because the success of the 2020 elections depends on all stakeholders,” he stated.

Acting Co-Chair of CODEO, Sheikh Armiyawo Shaibu, said elections were democratic necessity and underscored the need to sanitise the electoral space and build mindsets that rejected violence.

The head of Head of Peace and Security Programme at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Mr Ernest Ansah Lartey, said interventions and advocacies were needed to deescalate violence ahead of the December Polls.

Participants bemoaned alleged “administrative bottlenecks” in applying the law against people who violated the anti-violence law.