By Caleb Kuleke
Ho, Oct. 26 GNA- Superintendent of Police, Mrs Effia Tenge, Director of Public Affairs of the Volta Regional Police Command has implored students of the country’s second-cycle institutions to be disciplined, and avoid substance abuse and hooliganism.
She charged them to desist from violent acts and endeavour to use appropriate channels to seek redress whenever they felt things were not going correctly.
Mrs Tenge gave the advice when she addressed students of Sonrise Senior High School in the Ho Municipality on hooliganism and substance abuse as part of a campaign to curtail such acts in the country’s educational institutions.
The Director of Public Affairs urged the students to be respectful and obedient to authorities, be tolerant of one another’s a view, and live and study peacefully with their colleagues from different political, religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Mrs Tenge said in recent times the country had witnessed some violent situations in its second cycle and tertiary institutions which led to the destruction of property both private and public.
She said there was a sharp linkage of substance abuse with some of the behaviours, hence the campaign to sensitise students on the adverse effects of substance abuse and hooliganism and the need to stay away from them.
The campaign, she said, was in collaboration with the National Narcotics Control Commission with sponsorship from Lexta Gh limited and urged all relevant authorities to join the campaign to curb hooliganism in the country’s schools.
She mentioned rioting, bullying, vandalism and gangsterism as some forms of hooliganism, and the reasons students engage in violent acts include drug and alcohol use, mental and emotional problems, bad peer group influence.
Mrs Tenge asked second cycle institutions to strengthen their guidance and counseling department to continue to provide appropriate and professional counseling to students to shape their lives.
Assistant Superintendent of Police, Mr Augustine Awuah, Regional Operations Commander, also called on the public to follow due or rightful procedures to register their displeasure.
“Don’t break the laws through violent means,” he said, stressing that “when you are demonstrating against a certain displeasure, immediately police arrive, you have to stop.”
Some students who spoke to the Ghana News Agency thanked the Police and the Narcotics Commission and pledged to be law-abiding citizens and avoid acts of hooliganism and any other forms of violence.
GNA