Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo Mensah
Former Chief of Defense Staff, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo Mensah, has urged authorities to stop involving the military in situations that have nothing to do with them.
He said this in relation to the two youths who died in the shooting in Ejura on Tuesday, June 29, 2021.
According to him, the army getting involved in the situation was wrong because they are not an internal security institution.
“The military didn’t have to be used at that particular time”.
He told Samuel Eshun on e.TV Ghana’s Factsheet, “The army is there to defend Ghana against an external aggression. In no way should you deploy the army as the first source of an application of force it is wrong and it is never done”.
Citing an example he stated, “If you watch the chaos going on in South Africa today, the army is not there also, on 6th of January in America when the rebels tried to attack the Senate, there were no soldiers there so don’t use the military for a job they’re not trained to do”.
He noted, that the police are the forces to deal with any case or disturbances internally and not the military.
“In those days, the police were not armed so when they face a rowdy commotion and they can’t deal with it, they call the military because they know they are on stand by to come and apply a bigger force”.
He emphasized that the military cannot deal with demonstration but rather, “They’re coming to shoot and kill that’s their job. They’re not coming to say go back, go back that’s not the job of the military. I never trained to deal with the crowd so it’s not our job”.
Brigadier Nunoo advised people to note that, it is always serious business whenever and wherever the military is involved because “they come to shoot and to kill so don’t call them unnecessarily unless there’s a need for them”.