Bagbin attachés saga: Some people stuck in revolutionary era – Security Analyst

Four military officers attached to Bagbin’s office withdrawn

Minority kick against withdrawal of military officers

Majority justifies move, says Bagbin has adequate police protection

Security Analyst, Col. Festus Aboagye has stated that the quest by some state officials to use military officers as part of their security detail is an indication that the country was still clinging on to its revolutionary era.

According to him, the country was still stuck in the past and had to migrate into the current democratic dispensation especially in that of the fourth republic ushered in in 1993.

Commenting on the withdrawal of military officers attached to the office of the Speaker, Colonel Aboagye contended that it may have been a deliberate ploy of the country not to detach itself from military governance.

He observed that there has not been any precedence of military officers being assigned the responsibility of protecting the Speaker of Parliament since the inception of the Fourth Republic.

“We have found it difficult probably deliberately as a nation to make a clean break from our military era dispensation and our democratic era. We have imparted and carried on with certain practices that have no place in the democratic environment and one of them is this issue that we are now confronted with. Doe Adhajo has indicated that this is the first time since 1992 or 1993 if you like that a speaker has been accredited military protection…there has not been any precedent…no speaker in the Fourth Republic has been accredited military protection that’s the first point we need to note,” he stressed.

Col Festus Aboagye also emphasized that the deployment of military officers for personal protection duties was not in sync with constitutional provisions.

He mentioned that the military is supposed to be called in to protect the state against external aggression.

Prescribing solutions on how to deal with the menace, Col Festus Aboagye said the country ought to adhere to the democratic tenets as espoused in the constitution.

“The issue will be resolved if we interpreted and adhered to the principles of constitutional democratic governance which is that the military must not be doing certain things including protecting certain individuals except and unless in a state of emergency.

"If we don’t do that and we sit in our houses and we say the is a certain convention that we have borrowed from the revolutionary era…that all us condemn and therefore use that as a convention [as] we have heard in the media…people say by practice…what practice?? We did it because we [military] were ruling the country. But since 1992 [I’m using the military word], we should have made a clean break from that aberrant military practices and ushered in ourselves new democratic dispensation,” he said.