“Nunoo Mensah Is Right” - Kwabena Adjei

Recent comments by National Security Advisor, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (retd), calling on striking workers to either end the incessant strikes and demonstrations or move out of the country if the kitchen is too hot for them, does not just seem to be gradually gaining grounds and making sense to many people by each passing day, it is also attracting wider support and commendations from prominent people.

The latest to join in the pool of prominent Ghanaians after retired Diplomat, Mr. K. B. Asante; Peace and Security Expert at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Dr. Kwesi Aning and Labor expert, Mr. Autin Gamey, is no less a person than the celebrated National Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress, Dr. Kwabena Adjei, affectionately called Wayoo Wayoo.

According to Dr. Adjei, considering the fact that the about 600,000 public service workers who constitute only about 2 percent of the country’s 25 million population but take home about 70 percent of the nation’s annual budget under the Single Spine Salary Structure, and still complain of their salaries, he wholeheartedly backs General Nunoo Mensah’s for stating the obvious.

Speaking exclusively to The Al-Hajj in an interview from Ho, the Volta regional capital yesterday, the only National Chairman who led his party to two successive election victories stated “the current generation are taking virtually everything from this country…what are we leaving for the young once and generations yet unborn…If we take everything from this country in the name of salaries yet we are not satisfied , and we are demanding more, what are we leaving behind for the future generation?”

He said instead of the media to expose the workers who are enjoying so much yet pretend to be suffering and go on strike, the media have rather led an agenda for people to lambast the National Security Advisor for saying the truth.

“We the politicians are not the problem, it is you the media…instead of telling Ghanaians how these workers want to spend everything we have as a country, you set the agenda for people to crucify the man who stated the obvious”

Recently, Speaking at the commissioning of a nine unit-classroom block he built for O’reilly Senior High School in Accra, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo Mensah (retd) took a swipe at workers in the country whom he says consistently use strikes to get their concerns addressed.

He among other things thundered “Every Tom, Dick and Harry gets up and is calling for a strike. If you don’t want the job Ghana is not a police state, take your passport and get out of this country. If you can’t sacrifice like what some of us have done, then get out. If the kitchen is too hot for you, get out”.

General Nunoo-Mensah’s comment, which was in reaction to a strike action by the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana that was called off yesterday, generated uproar in the media with others mainly, the opposition calling on the President to boot his Security Adviser out.

Whiles the bashing of General Nunoo-Mensah was on, retired Diplomat and elderly statesman, Mr. K. B. Asante came out forcefully to back his statement, saying “Yes I agree with what he said, but I think we should go into the matter in depth and find out why they are on strike…yes he is right in his comment and we should address the problem.”

As if that was not enough, Dr. Kwesi Aning, Peace and Security Expert at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, also jumped to the National Security Advisor’s defense, stressing his comments were harmless and must not be manipulated.

Also, Mr. Austin Gamey, an accomplished labor consultant, called on critics not to vent their spleen on Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (retd) because "the level of indiscipline is extremely unacceptable."

The Labor expert said the striking workers on the labor front must have their salaries suspended if they contravene the Labor Act.

This, the NDC’s National Chairman Dr. Kwabena Adjei said, ought to have been the position of government rather than distancing itself from the retired General’s truthful remark.

He called on the youth to rise and speak against the injustice going in the country where workers of the present generation want to “eat” everything without thinking of tomorrow.