• This is the view of NPP's North East regional chairman
• Both parties have routinely accused each other of politicizing the security sector
Members of the opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC, should stay away from recruitment processes into the security services because even if they applied, their applications will be fished out and thrown out.
On the flipside, members of the ruling party should send in their applications because they stand a good chance of being picked.
This is the view of North East Regional Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party, Nurudeen Fuseini, in comments made on a local radio station and carried by Adom FM Online.
“As you’re aware, recruitments into the security services are underway. I encourage all party members to send in their applications. If you had ever come out as an NDC supporter to criticize the NPP, we will fish you out and remove your application”, the Chairman declared.
“I have to be honest with you, for us as a party in the region, we will disregard the so-called due process, we are going to apply our set of party rules because we are in power,” he added.
The subject of political infiltration into the security sector came up strongly during the Ayawaso Wuogon By-election commission of enquiry hearings and subsequently its report.
Part of the report on political recruitment into the security sector read:
“The Commission finds, rather disturbingly, that the national security establishment is a means by which party faithful’s are resettled. Whether or not these persons who perform vigilante functions are members of any known militia groups, their very presence within the state security machinery encourages opposition parties to also seek to counter their activities. Given that these persons are citizens and not ordinarily disqualified from such appointments, the Commission is particularly worried at the manner of their absorption and the absence of a system for proper training and re-socialization. The need for re-socialization is mandated by the fact that these people are ordinarily trained and used to defending political party loyalists and officers, and consequently their training and orientation is normally partisan- a situation that disables them from operating in an establishment that should be non-partisan founded on an abject loyalty to the state.”
It continued: “The Commission regrets to state that its finds ,the contrary situation in the preponderance of evidence led before it .The current situation reflects an easy transition in which members of a party militia are ordinarily appointed as national security operatives upon the assumption of power by their political party and this not only undermines the standing and future of that establishment but also the individual and collective security of Ghanaians if left unchecked. In this regard, the Commission notes that the appointment model in to the National Security secretariat violates Section 15 of Act 526 and the future compliance with this legislation cannot be overemphasized.”
Some security services – Police and Immigration – have recently started recruitment processes with the sale of forms but the perennial allegation of it being merely procedural and that slots have already been filled politically has come up.
The army specifically has denied that any such arrangement exists.
The two major parties have routinely accused each other of politicizing the security sector