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Acclaimed security specialist Dr. Kwesi Aning, Director at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre at Teshie in Accra, appears irritated and tired with Ghanaians’ apparent disinterest in their own security.

Sounding unusually pissed by reports of recurring armed raids by robbers who appear to have a field day, the usually coolheaded expert whose opinion on any security situation is only a phone call away, told his host on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday that when he analyses the security situation and paints the true picture, he is vilified as though he wishes the nation ill.

Meanwhile those charged with planning and providing security adequate enough for the citizenry, he said, lack the grand appreciation of the enormity of the situation let alone proffer the required effective solutions.

“Am I the criminal?” he retorted to questions of why he thinks the situation is bound to worsen in the face of the current sub-adequate approaches for solutions that do not analyze crime patterns or triangulate the phenomenon.

“If you look at the police vehicles, very nice… and you look at the state of our roads, there is just no correlation between what drove the choice of those Toyotas and the roads on which they need to drive to apprehend criminals. So any criminal who can run a little bit faster than a pot-bellied old man like me, those cars cannot chase them on our roads.

“The criminals know that, so now what drives the criminality relates to the demographics, the median age in this country is 21, badly educated, unemployed, increasingly unemployable, expanding urban space totally unplanned, all contribute to facilitating crime.”

Asked what he thinks it will take to reduce the crime rate, Dr. Aning retorted: “Well come to my new class starting in September and I will teach you and I’ll charge you for it because I pay my own petrol …”

If his host took that for a joke, Dr. Kwesi Aning made it clear it was no joke at all: “Oh no, true, no, no, no, don’t laugh. You see you should be asking those who should be protecting you and I, ‘what are you doing with the state-funding of your lifestyle so you and I can feel secure enough to go about our business?’ I am a private businessman, so let people come to my class in September and I’ll charge them for it.”

He maintained that providing public security is not just about the logistics and resources. “You need a grander strategic understanding of security management that ties in to the logistics, the resources and the manpower. You see, here you’ll hear some important person say ‘oh we need more cars, we need more telephones, we need more handsets, we need more men and women. What is the strategic context and understanding of the security environment within which you need more men and women? Now come on, why don’t you ask the big men and women whose petrol is paid for, that what is the strategic context when they say we need xyz within which they are plotting these figures?”

Interestingly, shortly after that interaction, news broke of an ongoing armed robbery of a transport company at the North Industrial Area where armed men eventually made away with huge sums of money and also seized a private car after their getaway car lost its tyres.

About 20 money transfer outlets are reported to have been raided in Accra during February alone.