Ace investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has joined a list of Ghanaians who have criticized the government for giving Jean Mensa, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, military protection.
Manasseh in a Facebook post questioned why the duty of providing security for the EC chair was not for the Ghana Police Service.
He reasoned that by using military officers instead of police, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is lowering the reverence and esteem accorded the Ghana Armed Forces.
Manasseh opined that Ghana Police Service has the capacity to give the EC chair effective protection and that the decision to use the military is not only against the law but also an attack on the integrity of the police.
“The Ghana Police Service can fight armed robbers and terrorists. But someone thinks our police cannot provide security for the Electoral Commission Chairperson. So you find armed soldiers following her to court. How will the armies of civilised countries look at our army?
"By allowing this to happen, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is not only undermining the police, but he’s also reducing the Ghana Armed Forces to a laughing stock. Soldiers should not be reduced to errand boys for private, party-affiliated lawyers and protectors of illegal mining sites inhabited by Chinese.
"This is shameful and it must stop. Note To Yaanom: You don’t need to hate the government or the governing party to know that this is wrong. Once you have brains, and not sand, in your head, this should trouble you”, he said.
Meanwhile, Gabby Otchere Darko, a leading member of the ruling party has defended the decision to give Jean Mensa military protection.
He said “This woman, the returning officer for the presidential election, has had her life threatened multiple times from all manner of corners, her character insulted, her integrity denigrated and the threats to her life heightened to the highest dangerous point that any public servant should endure, for the security services to consider it appropriate to offer her the highest form of protection they could. Her security at home, office and around her 24-7, is made up of a combination of soldiers and police. I am not sure she enjoys the security attention. But she understands she has to endure it. And, some of us have a problem with that?”
Ace investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni