5 August 2008
editorial
The Heritage Newspaper, last week Friday, reported about the alleged assault of a 28-year-old tanker driver, Eric Boakye, by two Military personnel at Adenta, near Accra. The crime of the victim was that he had shouted- "do you want to kill me", after the two soldiers in a civilian saloon car, had driven dangerously past his car.
The soldiers reportedly squeezed the scrotum of the victim to point of death and left him to his fate. He was later rescued and rushed to the Legon Hospital, where he is currently on admission. Though the incident has been reported to the Adenta police, they are yet to make any arrests. After being ruled by constitutionally elected governments for almost 16 years now, one would have thought that our military personnel had come to terms with democracy, but that is not the case.
The country continues to witness attacks on the civilian population by some of our military personnel, who are refusing to accept the hand of friendship that the military high command and Ministry of Defence has stretched out to the civilian population. To curtail these unwarranted attacks on civilians, The Chronicle calls on the military command to conduct a full-scale investigation into the incident, since the registration number of the car they were using had been made available. Those behind the attack must be punished accordingly, to serve as deterrent to others.
Some of the soldiers appear to have wrongly assumed that because they are in uniform, they are above the laws of the land and can therefore do whatever they like. They must be reminded that even President Kufuor who is the commander in chief of the Ghana Armed Forces is not above the laws of the land. If he does something that is contrary to the provisions of the constitution, he can be impeached and made to face the law.
It is the contention of The Chronicle that if the military high command begins to punish some of these recalcitrant soldiers who appear to be tarnishing the image of the armed forces, it would serve as an advice to others who may want to emulate them in future. We believe that if the latest victim, Eric Boakye, had offended the soldiers at all, the best thing for them to do was to arrest and hand him over to the police. They have no right to assault the driver to the point of killing him just because they are soldiers. This barbaric act defies the modern role for soldiers.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Ghanaian Chronicle. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
