The Minister of Education, Lee Ocran, added a parlous touch to last Tuesday’s Independence Day anniversary celebration when he reportedly explained the boogey men President Mills has added to the security system. This was disclosed yesterday on an Oman FM radio morning programme.
He is reported to have told the kids during a post-parade reception that the boogey men they saw executing the Russian-type foot drill on the Independence Square would deal with mischief-makers during the 2012 polls.
The minister’s boogey men story, we are sure, was not intended for the kids but for their parents at home and they as kids were expected to transmit President Mills’s message to them that “they should not dare.” Whatever is scaring President Mills about the 2012 polls to decide on the establishment of Special Forces for the polls is beyond our ken. From verification machines to the innocuous “all-die-be-die” refrain, he continues to rehearse platoon battle drills in response in deed when there is no enemy in sight.
It appears that the so-called Special Forces have been created ahead of the 2012 elections and one of the NDC rented press dealt with the subject, leaving nobody in doubt about what President Mills intends doing with the boogey men when the elections are due.
According to the newspaper, the Halloween-dressed men will deal with “all-die-be-die” mongers in the 2012 polls. An attempt at scaring many Ghanaians, especially in the strongholds of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), from registering and voting is such an ill-advised thing to do when the repercussions will be all-pervading.
The security agents are not a homogenous group but a microcosm of the population drawn from varied backgrounds, a fact which should not be lost to Mills and his team.
In a country which has no hostile neighbours, the creation of Special Forces, as the minister implied to deal with the 2012 polls, sounds ominous.
It is at variance with President Mills’s promise of peaceful elections. For a man notorious for not walking his talk, it is skeptical that most Ghanaians would believe what he says about the 2012 polls.
Let not President Mills and his hawkish elements get excited about the graffiti-faced macho men. The course of history cannot be altered by such men, regardless of the training they underwent at Asutuare and the briefing following that.
If Ghanaians want President Mills to remain in power no matter how badly he performs, so shall it be. If on the other hand they find his performance as is the case now, the outcome of the ballot box cannot be manipulated. Those who ignore these facts do so at their peril.
We are our own enemies as President Mills observed some time ago. The possibility of foreign troops from outside our borders storming into our country for the sake of invading and pillaging our resources is out of the question, making nonsense of the reactivation of the so-called commando unit.
Using the state powers to remain in power has never worked. Gbagbo tried it as did Muammar Gaddafi until the bitter end. The Libyan strongman, in spite of arming his troops to the teeth with the most sophisticated firearms, died in a gutter- helpless and even pleading with the man who fired the fatal round to spare his life.
All we need is the institutional framework to ensure that the will of the people prevails and not the engagement of some party men in the name of Special Forces.
Any explanations from the Military High Command or even the National Security apparatus about the selection of a platoon each from the infantry battalions, the Navy and Air Force, are face-saving and unconvincing, given the backing story in the NDC rented press and what the minister told the kids.
There is no dispute about the fact that the security of a country depends on everybody but government, because of its control of the security agencies, has a special role in ensuring that peace prevails.
President Mills will be held responsible, therefore, for any breach of the peace in the country, especially since he was handed over a cohesive country with no smoking guns.
