Ghana @66: Our military is still lawless!

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023, just a day after Ghana marked its 66th birthday, the military stormed Ashaiman, a suburb of Tema, and brutalised some residents who had allegedly killed a military personnel, Trooper Imoro Sherrif.

The deceased soldier had reportedly sought permission from the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) to visit his mother in Ashaiman.

According to the GAF, the young soldier was killed in the early hours of Saturday, March 4, 2023, at Ashaiman-Taifa.

Trooper Sherrif, who is stationed in Sunyani, was in Accra on a course and had sought permission to visit his parents at Ashaiman where he grew up, but was found in a pool of blood in the early hours of Saturday near the Amania Hotel in Ashaiman.

I vehemently condemn the way and manner some unknown individuals killed the soldier.

I think the Major Mahama incident at Denkyira Obuasi in 2017 which is very much related should have informed us as Ghanaians that such acts cannot be tolerated.

I was having a conversation with some colleagues of mine in school who were very certain that once the military used a helicopter while searching for those who killed their colleague, then it meant that the brutalities were sanctioned by the high and mighty.

The suspicion of my colleagues was confirmed when a statement from the military signed by Brigadier General Eric Aggrey-Quashie stated categorically that “Personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) on Tuesday 7 March 2023, conducted a swoop in Ashaiman and its environs in a man-hunt for some criminals, who are suspected to have stabbed and killed a young soldier (Trooper Imoro Sherrif) in the early hours of Saturday 4 March 2023, at Ashaiman-Taifa…”

The statement that “GAF wishes to state categorically that the military operation, which was sanctioned by the Military High Command, was NOT to avenge the killing of the soldier but rather to fish out the perpetrators of the heinous crime,” is untenable to say the least.

“The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) also wishes to place on record that the swoop was not targeted at innocent civilians but was an intelligence-led operation conducted on suspected hideouts of criminals and crime-prone areas in the general area,” the statement continued.

How can an intelligence-led operation turn into a swoop operation?

“Intelligence-led operations are surgical, clinical and informed by intelligence which would normally lead to the operation being as covert as possible and sometimes even taking place without the knowledge of the public,”Prof Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, Associate Professor at the School of Law, University of Ghana, explained. It originated as a rejection of the "reactive" swoops which the police had been employing.”

Thus this supposedly “intelligence-led operation” is very barbaric and belongs in the stone age!

Our laws have outlined the way and manner in which the police can arrest and it is only a court of competent jurisdiction that can pronounce a suspect guilty of a crime.

The military by their act of brutalising those victims have already declared them guilty of a crime.

This constitutes an extra-judicial act and violates the right to being assumed innocent until the contrary is proven.

The writer is a freelance journalist and a scholar

Email: paanyan7@gmail.com