Source: News Desk
There are mixed-feelings within the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) formerly Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) over the appointment of Charles Alhassan Kipo as the new Director-General (D-G).
Sources said many loyalists of the new regime are sceptical about the appointment while those close to the former regime celebrate.
The scepticism among loyalists of the new regime, according to a credible source, is due to Kipo’s long association with the immediate past Director-General Nana Attobrah Quaicoe.
Sources within the nation’s foremost espionage network argued that although Kipo was enlisted during the era of Jerry John Rawlings, around 1998, he has been the number three man under Attobrah Quaicoe, during which time a lot of injustice was meted out to very senior intelligence officers, due to the suspicion that they were not loyalists of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), an identity one needed to be placed at sensitive positions in the bureau during the time of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“See, the BNI which was built upon the foundations of the erstwhile Police Special Branch was built as a professional network, and we were trained to be nationalistic in outlook, no matter which party comes to power.
There were personnel among us who were loyal to NPP even during President Rawlings’ era, but we all exhibited professionalism and patriotism in our duties,” a source asserted.
The source added: “But President Kuffour started diluting the posture of the institution and personnel from a nationalistic standpoint to a partisan one, and one needed to be loyal to NPP to work here, and those of us already in have been ostracised.”
According to some of the long-service officers of the organization, severe damage has been done to the structure and operational integrity of the once-dreaded national intelligence and investigative body that needs someone untainted with the immediate past administration to repair.
And having worked as the Director of Administration, making him the number 3 man under the same regime, Kipo is not likely to effect the kind of drastic changes needed to restore the structural and operational integrity of the BNI, added a source.
It is on record that that Akufo-Addo Administration alone has recruited nearly 1,400 personnel into the system, with the last batch of recruits joining after the December 7, 2024 elections.
The very first recruitment done under the Akufo-Addo regime brought on more than 620 personnel, which was larger than the total number of personnel at the organization at the time.
The regime went further to recruit other large numbers subsequently, increasing the number of personnel to a little below 2,000.
“Some of those recruited under Akufo-Addo do not meet the criteria for engagement at the bureau, but since most of them were brought by party officials, they were dumped on us, and some were even made big men without the required experience,” another source stated.
This source indicated that some of these party recruits are known party delegates who openly vote during NPP primaries and the bureau was not allowed to conduct background checks on them before their recruitment.
Another issue of agitation at the organization is the manner in which juniors were jumped over their seniors due to their political affiliation.
Most of the regional and divisional directors across the country today were enlisted under President Kuffour around 2004. And senior officers, some of who were in the service eight to 12 years before the 2004 batch and are far more experienced and more professional than them, are rather deputies, according to a long-serving officer.
This situation, according this source, started even before Yaw Donkor became director, but he refused to correct the anomaly, and most of us are afraid that with Kipo, having participated in this injustice as Director-Admin, the situation risks being perpetuated under him as Director-General.
Moreover, the source said, the personnel who had been enjoying favours under the previous regime, but had been jittery after the December elections, have started celebrating that “their own man is being appointed as D-G,” when news about Kipo’s purported broke.
Since December, these personnel have been afraid that some of them who did not fit the requirements for recruitment, and those jumped above their seniors would be fished out, but now feel that with Kipo, they are safe.
Others, however, think that Kipo is qualified to be D-G, looking at his track record as a long-serving officer of the bureau, having risen through the ranks and having done his work diligently.
These other sources think that what the government should do, if it decides to appoint Kipo by all means, is to give him specific targets to meet in restoring seniority to the deserving officers, weed out the unqualified personnel or retrain them for other uses, and restructure the organization to perform its duties as it was originally established to do.
Some believe there are other officers still in the bureau who are senior to Kipo who can be appointed and tasked to restructure the organization within the next few years, while Kipo with more than five years to retire, is made a deputy, and then take over after the tenure such senior officers.
It would be recalled that Kipo, a native of Bole in the Savannah Region, was one of the BNI investigators who busted some officials of the National Service Scheme around 2014 for some fraudulent dealings.
He was actually tipped to have taken over as D-G, had John Mahama won the 2016 election. But his long association with the NPP regime has painted a different picture of him in the eyes of loyalists of the current regime.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
