Special Forces Alarm MPs

IT APPEARS flippant comments coming from some members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) on the display by the Special Force Unit (SFU) of the Ghana Armed Forces at the 55th Independence Anniversary celebration has alarmed many Ghanaians, including lawmakers, as Parliament meets on the matter.

Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, a deputy minister for Local Government and Rural Development who is also a strong loyalist of President Atta Mills, was reported to have remarked that the colourful display of the Special Forces was to showcase their battle-readiness to crush proponents of ‘all-die-be-de’ during the forthcoming general elections.

Yesterday, First Deputy Speaker, Prof. Mike Oquaye, who was presiding over proceedings in Parliament, directed the leadership of the country’s lawmaking body to meet and decide whether to invite the Minister for Defence to appear before the House and inform the representative of the people about the proper mandate of the new forces.

His directive followed an application by the Parliamentary Ranking Member on Defence and Interior, William Ofori Boafo, requesting the House to invite the minister to come and clear the air on the matter.

“The minister should be invited to disabuse the minds of Ghanaians,” he requested.

In his application, William Ofori Boafo, MP for Akropong who is popularly referred to as W.O. Boafo, said the comments made by government officials on the forces did not auger well for the neutrality of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

According to him, it was important for the Defence Minister, Gen. Henry Smith, to assuage the feelings of Ghanaians on the mandate of the Special Forces.

“We know our Armed Forces have excelled in defending the territorial integrity of the country and on international peacekeeping operations. It is important that we do not do anything that would compromise their neutrality”, WO Boafo cautioned.

Incidentally, the Defence Minister was in the House when the application was made.

Initially, Majority Leader Cletus Avoka had contested the application, arguing it would not be right to subject the operations of the Ghana Armed Forces to public scrutiny.

“It is an unfortunate demand to let the minister for defence to come to the House to publicise the operations of the Armed Forces”, he emphasized.

However, Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, disagreed, pointing out that the parading of the Special Forces was already in public domain.

“We are not asking the Defence Minister to come and tell us about the nuts and bolts of the Armed Forces. We only want him to come and assuage the feelings of Ghanaians, bearing in mind that this is a special year for elections and people must be assured”.

Meanwhile, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma South, Ursula Owusu, has stressed that the will of the people could not be subverted by anybody or group as Ghanaians would defend the nation when the need arose. Ms. Owusu was reacting to reported statements by activists of the governing NDC that the display by the Special Force Unit (SFU) at the independence square was a warning to adherents of ‘all die be die’.

The GAF has insisted that the unit was created in response to new security threats confronting the nation and to facilitate its rapid deployment to defend the country against both external and internal aggression.

Speaking on Peace FM’s morning programme, ‘Kokrokoo’ yesterday, Ms. Ursula Owusu said the people got tired of the system and resolved that enough was enough, “no special forces can stand against the will of the people.”

Numerous leaders the world over, she pointed out, who had tried to subvert the will of the people encountered serious consequences even to the point of painful, humiliating death.

Ms. Ursula Owusu cited the examples of ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Idi Amin of Uganda as well as Ben Ali of Tunisia, reiterating that all these past leaders had Special Forces but they could not protect them and their tyrannical tendencies.

She warned that the Mills-led government would fail in any attempt to cling to power through intimidation and force because Ghanaians would strongly resist that.