The Inspector General of Police, Francis Munu has assured Sierra Leoneans that his force will be impartial in policing the November 2012 polls. In an exclusive interview with Politico marking exactly 100 days to voting day, the police boss made some other interesting and commitments. Read on and keep for your records:
POLITICO: With 100 days to elections what have you, the Sierra Leone Police, put in place to ensure the safety and security of the process?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Well let me first of say that the police is a real stakeholder in the electoral process and as such we have the responsibility for providing a safe and secured environment for free, fair, credible and non-violence elections to take place. We ensure the integrity of each of the electoral phases. And we also protect members of the electoral commission. We protect their assets. And we assist in the transportation. We have come up with an elections policing plan which we have costed and which we are not trying to align with our available resources so that we provide the capabilities that are required to that we perform our tasks. We have been able to provide transportation, communications equipment. We have undertaken training in various areas such as management of public order, crowd control and elections-specific training so that during the elections everybody will be fully deployed and everybody will know exactly what to do. We’ve also tried to procure public order equipment and we are forging partnerships with other agencies who we think will be able to support us. We are also training people on the concept of operations. We are working with the military for deploying military police officers to work alongside and we are defining the concept of operations in case have to deploy military officers to support the Sierra Leone police. And we are also trying to build up the morale of the force. We also try to imbibe professionalism in them by ensuring that they perform their roles in a very professional manner and an impartial and nonpartisan way. We have circulated public notices that there should be no campaigning in barracks in line with contemporary practice. And we are, in a nutshell, trying to tie the loose ends, crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s for the D-Day.
POLITICO: Are you concerned that some of your officers could show partiality for one side or the other in the political divide.
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Oh yes we are concerned because neutrality and impartiality are some of the core values that must be practised especially by those who have the responsibility for delivering free, fair and credible elections. Like I stated the Sierra Leone Police is one of the major stakeholders in the electoral process. And unless we put these principles in place we cannot be sure of delivering free, fair and credible elections. Therefore it’s one of our priorities to ensure that the police remain apolitical. And we provide support to all political party leaders and we facilitate their meetings and ensure that we do what needs to be done in order that we will come out as neutral arbiters of the process.
POLITICO: In the court of public opinion many people believe that the police have not shown neutral and impartiality. Is there anything you are doing concretely to, at the very least, try to address this public perception.
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Well...yes. Even though we know public opinion is not always right. However we are looking inwards to see whether there could be any iota of evidence to support those perceptions. This is why we are holding periodic training, frequent training programmes. And wherever we go we also ask politicians not to interfere with the police because sometimes when politicians come out to criticise the police strongly in the process of defending themselves they would be perceived to be partisan but that is not the case. The police is a state institution that should be treated with utmost respect and support so that we can succeed because the police works for everybody and in the process we’d also like to work with everybody so it is our collective responsibility to ensure that we help to develop the police because the police is from a cross section of the society. So what obtains in the generality of the public can also be seen in the police. Therefore it is our collective responsibility to see that we assist and support the police where they fall short and make sure that we develop them to the point where they should be so that they can serve members of the public with distinction.
POLITICO: Can you and will you say “NO” to a political order or an order from the government to carry out something which you feel is not right particularly if it is against the opposition or their supporters?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Well one thing we ought to know is the police always has to work in conformity with the law. If I receive an order that is manifestly illegal then if any wrong results out of it then I am legally responsible for it. Because the rule or the law on superior orders is that the orders must not be manifestly illegal. And let us also understand that politics and policing are quite different. The fact that we have a minister of internal affairs, we have a Police Council does not in anyway, mean that those people have operational responsibility for the police. The constitution spells it out clearly that the Inspector General of the Sierra Leone Police shall have operational command of the police and not the politicians. But sometimes people think that when we take decisions they are being politically motivated. It is not the case. Whatever we do has to be in conformity with the law and nobody can give us any orders that are illegal
POLITICO: If anybody does?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: We will not accept them because we have the training, we have the experience. And we must take decisions based on sound reasoning and good judgement. And those decisions we must be accountable for. If anything goes wrong we can be called upon to account. And we will not excuse ourselves by saying that somebody else told us to do so.
POLITICO: Finally, logistically, do you have all you need to police the elections?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Well nothing is ever enough. But in our own context we are reasonably equipped. The logistics we have we can, using our management skills and our resource management abilities, make sure we achieve our objectives.
POLITICO: So you have all the vehicles for example that you need. You have all the tear gas canisters. You have all the arms and ammunition that you need to police the elections. You will not need more that you don’t have?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: But for the arms and ammunition that you mentioned, which are not part of our elections equipment, we have all the other logistics that are normally used in democratic policing.
POLITICO: When you say the arms and ammunition you do not need, are you saying that no police officers will be with live bullets, at all, in these elections?
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Except in those tasks that are normal. But during electioneering officers don’t carry arms. And at polling stations there are no arms. But when we do provide routine security like in static security areas, of course arms are necessary to deter criminals and would-be law breakers.
POLITICO: So elections come on 17 November the Sierra Leone Police is prepared, full prepared.
IG FRANCIS MUNU: Fully prepared!
(c) Politico 09/08/12
