By The recent daylight robbery at a jewelry store in Adabraka has sparked serious concerns about Ghana’s security infrastructure.
Peter Lanchene Toobu, a member of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, noted that the incident, which involved the theft of over six million cedis, exposes a failure in the country’s security response mechanisms.
According to a member of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Peter Lanchene Toobu, the incident, in which over six million cedis were stolen, reveals a failure in the country’s security responsiveness.
“What happened in Adabraka in broad daylight is an embarrassment to our whole security architecture. It is an embarrassment and a failure for us to bring our citizens to a level that they would be security conscious,” he said.
The robbery involved four armed, masked men who fired shots to disperse the crowd before making off with large bags of cash from a parked Toyota Corolla.
Despite occurring in broad daylight and a public location, there was no immediate police intervention, which Mr. Toobu views as a significant lapse in vigilance.
He criticized both the police and the business owner, arguing that enhanced security measures could have averted the robbery.
Mr. Toobu emphasized that the incident serves as a wake-up call for citizens to be more security-conscious and proactive.
He also questioned the jewelry store owner’s security protocols, suggesting that businesses handling large sums of cash should consider employing police escorts.
He noted that the Ghana Police Service can offer such services upon request, particularly for high-risk businesses, and emphasized that the responsibility for personal security starts with the business owners.
“Your personal security is your responsibility, when we are talking about security on another level, people are trained and they have the expertise to grant you service, the Ghana Police is supposed to grant him with a service and that opportunity for you to be served depends on how you open up.
“Armed robbers are attracted to cash and motivated by money so when you generate money in your business, you should know that that is a magnet for robbery. If you know that, what would you do to provide security for yourself?” he asked.
Supporting this perspective, criminologist Dr. Jones Opoku Ware from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology called for heightened police patrols in high-risk commercial areas such as Adabraka.
He noted that crimes of this nature often involve insider knowledge, highlighting the importance for business owners to reduce on-premises cash holdings as a deterrent against such robberies.
“We have said this over and again because the fact that you are operating such businesses that attract this huge sum of money would require that you don’t keep this huge sum of money with you because such crimes are almost insider jobs.”
