Reports that the crime rate in Tamale has fallen in the first two quarters, that is in the preceding six months of the year, should be greeted with shouts of immense joy by all residents of the city; they can sleep easy now.
The City’s police command was the bearer of the good news when it presented the state of crime rate at the second ordinary meeting of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly on Tuesday.
Two things were made abundantly clear by the announcement. One, police officers in Tamale, to all intents and purposes, are obviously going about their job with due diligence, and two, criminals and other social deviants are being kept in check. And, all that is a good thing.
Given the city’s population, the crime statistics though not exactly stellar, still are noteworthy and significant enough to merit attention. They portray Tamale in a positive light and as a place where criminals are not welcome.
As the Metropolitan Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Anthony Appiah clearly observed, Tamale is on the right track. Tamale isn’t by any definition the crime capital of Ghana. There are some cities that definitely deserve the dubious title.
That said, one fact should be made clear; Tamale has not been spared the crime wave that has hit our country of late. The numbers as revealed by Chief Appiah don’t lie.
Truth be told, residents of Tamale have been victims of all kinds of crime; armed robbery, fraud, you name it, they have suffered it.
With its rapidly growing population and spectacular physical expansion, Tamale has over the years evolved into a huge urban center that has attracted all kinds of criminals, domestic abusers, fraudsters and whatnots who look for victims among the tens of thousands of city residents.
But these gangsters and hoodlums have largely failed. And the fact that they have essentially been stopped from carrying out their nefarious activities, is attributable to the men and women of the Tamale Police Service. They have had a zero tolerance for crime. Our police force has put Tamale criminals on notice, “You make a false move, and you will be busted, arrested.”
In his presentation, Chief Appiah lamented the fact that political interference from local politicians was hampering police officers from discharging their duties effectively. I hope those local politicos were listening with rapt attention to the Chief’s remarks.
Ultimately, what all the statistics mean is that, in the short term, Tamale is not being overrun by hard core criminals, unrepentant domestic abusers and sophisticated fraudsters, and in the long term, city authorities can look forward to using the good data to project Tamale as a safe haven for foreign and domestic investments.
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