A former Chief of Defense Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah has blamed the recent disturbances in Ejura on the failure of the government to implement the recommendations of the Emile Short commission which investigated the chaos that characterized the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections.
The government rejected at least 58.9% of the findings and recommendations of the Emile Short Commission.
Detailed scrutiny of government’s response contained in its White Paper, identified at least 39 issues of agreement or disagreement.
The White Paper prepared by the then Attorney-General, Gloria Akuffo, accepted or partly accepted 16 facts, findings or recommendations of the Commission.
Bregadier Nunoo-Mensah said the findings should have been implemented by the government to forestall these current developments.
He said this in an interview with Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take on 3FM Thursday July 8.
His comments come after a group of military men were captured on camera in Wa in the Upper West Regional brutalizing civilians on the streets.
According to one eyewitness, one of the soldiers was believed to have boarded what is referred to as “Yellow Yellow” or “Mahama Cambo” and lost his phone.
He also spoke about the disturbances at Ejura that occurred on Tuesday, June 29 which led to the death of two and injury to four.
Asked what could be causing these developments, Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah said “It is all because when these things happened in the past we never dealt with them so they are recurring.
“I think there was the Emile Short commission a few years ago and came out with a report but most of the recommendations were not taken up,” he said.
He further noted that the military is currently being used for work they are not trained to do.
He said the military are trained to deal with external threats and not internal problems.
Dealing with crimes as well as crowd control is the work of the Police and not the Military, he said.
He said “Talking about Ejura for example, I believe the Military are being misused, doing a job for which they are not trained for. Soldiers are not trained to disperse or deal with crowd, that is the job of the Police. Many of us don’t understand the role of the Military in our national security set up.
“The role mainly is to defend Ghana from external aggression and not to be used to deal with internal difficulties that the government faces.”
