By Monitoring Desk
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has come under barrages of criticisms following the brutalities some soldiers loaded in buses and armoured trucks meted out to residents of Taifa, Official Town and its surroundings, all suburbs of Ashaiman in the Greater Accra region.
Yesterday dawn, the soldiers, perhaps avenging the death of colleague who was allegedly stabbed to death by unknown assailants in the area, took the residents through brutalises undeserving of human beings in the area.
The 22-year-old soldier with the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) band in Sunyani in the Bono Region was reportedly stabbed to death by unknown attackers on Saturday dawn.
The soldier, according to sources, was returning from his girlfriend’s house in Taifa and heading toward his residence at Zongo-Laka in Ashaiman when the unfortunate incident occurred.
The condemnation started coming in thick and fast, as the Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Pary (NPP), Richard Ahiaggbah, condemned the Military for the brutalities, saying that even though the killing of the young soldier was crude, that should not warrant the Military to take the laws into their own hands.
“We must condemn the conduct of some military personnel circulating on social media, where they are brutalizing residents of Ashaiman for the crude murder of a soldier. Two wrongs don’t make a right. We are a country of laws; let’s allow the laws to work,” he tweeted yesterday, 7 March, 2023.
A Security Analyst, Dr Adam Bonaa also said the Military should have allowed the Police to investigate the circumstances under which one of them was allegedly killed rather than taking the law into their own hands.
Dr Bonaa indicated that the act of brutalizing civilians by the military was wrong.
The Member of Parliament for Ashaiman, Ernest Norgbey reported that Military officers stormed the homes of some civilians in Ashaiman on Monday, March 6 and brutalized them.
Mr Norgbey said on the Sunrise show on 3FM that “They can be peeved because one of their own is gone but brutalizing people is not the solution to this problem.”
He added “I know the men (military men) are coming from Michel’s camp. I have called the head there but his line is unreachable.”
Dr Bonaa also said that “The soldiers should have left this (killing their military man) in the hands of the police for investigations. The manner in which the soldiers undertook the operation was not right.”
Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Professor Kwesi Aning has slammed the Ghana Armed Forces for unleashing mayhem on residents of Ashaiman.
Military personnel stormed Ashaiman on Tuesday, March 7, and brutalised anyone they came across following the supposed murder of a military officer in the area.
Prof. Aning said the actions of the military are unfortunate and unconstitutional and a usurpation of the arresting responsibilities of the Ghana Police Service.
Speaking on Citi Prime News, the security analyst said “all crimes are punishable by law, but in punishing those crimes, we cannot take the law into our own hands.”
He maintained that though the killing of the military personnel is condemnable, under no circumstance should the military have moved to the area in an attempt to arrest the supposed killers.
“When a person is in uniform representing the state of Ghana and you attack that person, you’ve attacked the state of Ghana. The response mechanism for those who feel offended was to go to the police and report because it is the Ghana Police Service that is the frontline agency that should have undertaken the investigations, find the evidence, and use it to prosecute those arrested.”
“It is unfortunate that the friends of this young man who has unfortunately died, have taken the law into their hands and brought the reputation of Ghana into disrepute,” Prof Aning added.
