A security expert at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has blamed the incidence of police and military brutalities and unprofessional conduct in Ghana on an outdated culture in security operations.
Prof Emmanuel Kwesi Aning said rogue behaviour by the military and the police, which has dominated public discourse in the last two weeks, is steeped in a flawed culture of law enforcement.
“We are talking about institutional culture. How to change these institutional cultures because they are reflective of colonial mentality and structure that has not changed very much during the post-independence period.
“But the operational environment within which these services are performing is also changing so these quick military and police assurances and re-assurances do not help in creating that collaborative understanding of what the problems are and the need to partner each other,†Prof Aning stated.
The Director Faculty of Academic Affairs & Research presented this analysis of Ghana’s current security agencies on Saturday, July 3, 2021, on popular current affairs programme, Newsfile.
His comments followed two incidents of alleged unprofessional conduct of military personnel in different parts of the country.
In Ejura on June 29, 2021, soldiers shot into a crowd of protesters at Ejura, in Ashanti Region. Two civilian protestors lost their lives and four others sustained severe gunshot injuries.
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A public inquiry has been launched to probe that incident.
Before the dust settled on that incident, a viral video emerged showing soldiers brutalising residents of a community in Wa, in the Upper West Region, allegedly over a missing phone belonging to one of the soldiers.
The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has apologised for the incident and has promised to punish the soldiers involved.
Meanwhile, news headlines in Ghana, over the last six months, are inundated with numerous reports of alleged unprofessional conduct by the military and police.
For instance, the protests in Ejura that resulted in the death of two civilians followed the death of a social media activist, Ibrahim Mohammed, aka Kaaka, who some residents say died because police failed to give him protection after he had reported threats made on his life over his social media activism.
Kaaka was critical of government’s seeming failure to provide basic social amenities for his community.
Reports indicate that his Facebook videos caused disaffection among some local government officials.
Speaking on Newsfile, Prof Aning said the training of the military and the police needs reviewing.
“We need to go back and take a look at the training manuals and examine the institutional culture,†he said.