The embattled Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Ayensu Opare Addo (rtd), has disclosed that members of the supposed disbanded vigilante group, Delta Force, are working as National Security operatives.
The pro-NPP vigilante group was supposedly disbanded after the coming into force of the Vigilantism and Other Related Offences Act, prior to the 2020 general elections.
But DCOP Ayensu Opare Addo (rtd), who suffered brutalities at the hands of persons who identified themselves as operatives of National Security, has said that he personally identified two of the operatives who arrested him, as members of the supposed disbanded group.
This revelation gives fuel to suspicions that the members of some of the vigilante groups may have been absorbed into National Security after the supposed disbandment.
“The Delta Force was disbanded, so I knew they would not act again. I never expected the Delta Force to act this way because I knew them, and when I realised that they were not faithful to the government of the day, I disbanded the vigilante group. But they are [now] calling themselves National Security operatives,” he told Umaru Sanda Amadu
DCOP Ayensu Opare Addo (rtd) also recounted his ordeal at the hands of the operatives. He questioned the reasonability of his treatment at the hands of his assailants.
“I was the one they attacked. They handcuffed me and hit me with an AK-47. I don’t know why a reasonable and sensible senior operative of the National Security will direct junior officers to come and attack me when they can call me and handle this matter reasonably,” DCOP Ayensu Opare Addo added.
It would be recalled that a group of persons suspected to be part of the disbanded pro-NPP vigilante group, the Delta Force, were arrested for allegedly attempting to forcibly remove the Regional Security Coordinator from his office last Tuesday.
The group stormed the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council purporting to be security officials.
They then insisted on taking the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, DCOP Ayensu Opare Addo (rtd) out of his office.
This created some confusion at the place.
Police personnel from the Ashanti Regional Police Command, led by the Deputy Ashanti Regional Police Commander, DCOP David Agyemang Adjem, subsequently arrested the said members of the group.
A police source later disclosed that the persons who were arrested had been granted bail.
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred. In 2017, a group of Delta Force members attempted to remove the then Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, just when the Nana Addo government had come into office.
After the hooligans were arrested and sent to court, some members of the Delta Force boldly besieged the court premises to free their colleagues.
Despite the seriousness of that incident, those who stormed the court were only handed fines and cautioned.
