Peter Lanchene Toobu

Peter Lanchene Toobu is a Ghanaian retired senior police officer and politician born on 8 June 1968 in Jirapa in the Upper West Region, who serves as the Member of Parliament for the Wa West constituency. A member of the National Democratic Congress who resigned from the Ghana Police Service in 2019 to enter politics and first assumed office in January 2021, he retained his seat in December 2024 and is known as one of the relatively few former police officers in Ghana's Parliament, bringing the discipline and analytical training of a senior law enforcement career to parliamentary work on security and governance.

Police career

Toobu built a career in the Ghana Police Service that culminated in the rank of Superintendent, one of the mid-senior officer designations in the police hierarchy. He served in a variety of roles across his police career, including a particularly significant appointment as the Executive Secretary to the Inspector General of Police, David Asante Apeatu, from 2017. In this executive secretariat role, he worked at the administrative heart of the national police leadership, managing communications, coordination and the administrative infrastructure supporting the IGP's office. He resigned from the police service and retired in 2019 to focus on his political ambitions in the Wa West constituency.

Parliamentary career

He was first elected Member of Parliament for Wa West in the December 2020 general election, assuming office on 7 January 2021. In December 2024, he retained the seat with 25,498 votes against the NPP's Saatiri James Kpir-Faatey who received 10,162 votes, a majority of more than 15,000 that reflects the NDC's strong hold on the Wa West constituency in the Upper West Region. Wa West is a constituency in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region, a rural district bordering Burkina Faso where the Sisala and Wala communities depend on grain farming, livestock and the subsistence agriculture of the Upper West savanna.

Political Legacy

Peter Lanchene Toobu's transition from Superintendent of Police and Executive Secretary to the Inspector General to two-term MP for Wa West reflects a career shift from national law enforcement leadership to local parliamentary representation, bringing security sector expertise to a constituency in one of Ghana's most remote border regions.