Former Chief of Staff Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah has said the Ghana Armed Forces is full of “riff-raffs” pushed in there by the two main political parties – the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He was speaking on Class91.3FM’s morning show on Wednesday, 30 June 2021 about the recent Ejura disturbances that claimed three lives, two of them being victims of shots fired by soldiers into a crowd of demonstrators, who were demanding justice for lynched social media activist Ibrahim Kaaka Mohammed.

The retired army officer said: “The people in the military, they are not in the right type of employment. Most of the soldiers are either coming from NPP or NDC – riff-raffs who have been put into uniform”.

In his view, “there’s a huge problem of political interference”.

“You don’t allow the people appointed as IGP or Chief of Defence Staff to do the job”, he complained.

He also noted that soldiers “are paid to shoot and kill”, adding: “A soldier’s job is not to disperse crowd”, he told Kofi Oppong Asamoah.

Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah said as a soldier, “I’ve never learnt how to disperse a crowd. It’s not my job”.

“They [soldiers] are paid to shoot – not in the air – but at the chest, where it’s mostly going to cause death”, the retired army officer said.

He said deciding to use the army in such situations comes with hefty consequences, and, so, such a decision must be a well-thought-through one.

“So, you don’t use them just like that”, he warned, noting: “When the military comes, it’s not a joke, it’s a serious business”.

He bemoaned: “Unfortunately since the coming into force of the fourth republican Constitution, we have messed up all our institutions”.

“You talk about the Emile Short Commission; what happened? Nothing happened”, he noted.

“It made wonderful recommendations but nothing happened. I don’t believe anything will happen”, Brigadier Nunoo-Mensah said, adding: “And it is sad”.

He warned: “It’s going to get worse because we are not applying the right force at the right place”.

In his view, “when you get a problem in Ejura, you don’t call soldiers but we’ve [been calling] them since the fourth Republican Constitution came into force – the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election, [for example], causing a mess and when a public commission sits, a man of his stature as Emile Short and Prof Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, [both] speak and then you throw them away”.

“What are you telling me? That’s when we learn lessons and not repeat the mistakes of the past. We are all learning. So, the situation in Ghana is worsening. It’s worsening so rapidly that if we don’t take care, we are going to have a problem on our hands”, he cautioned.

–classfm

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