Somewhere in 2019, President Akufo-Addo declared war on illegal mining in Ghana after numerous complaints that our environment and water bodies were being destroyed by these illegal miners. He subsequently set up the Operation Vanguard team, which was made up of personnel from both the military and Police Service.
Though Operation Vanguard achieved a modest success after the first six months of operations, the situation began to deteriorate thereafter with the public levelling a series of allegations against members of the team. Some of these allegations bordered on extortion of money from the illegal miners to allow them to work. Indeed, no mean a person than a police detective attached to the team also came out to level serious allegations against commanders of Operation Vanguard.
Based on these particular allegations, the military reportedly took the decision to pull out of the operation and allow the police to take over. As we put this piece together, we cannot confirm whether the military has indeed pulled out or not.
To make matters worse, excavators which were seized during the operation also went missing. They were later traced to various locations in Accra.
Based on these allegations, many were Ghanaians who lost confidence in both the military and police to handle the situation and perpetually put an end to illegal mining in Ghana.
Fortunately, President Akufo-Addo has not given up the fight to stop illegal mining. He and his security team, led by the Minister for National Security, Mr Kan Dapaah, we believe, are re-organising on how to deal with the canker. Regrettably, the security personnel who are going to help them deal with the plan they are adopting to fight the menace are neck-deep, this time, not in extortion, but pure robbery.
According to a story we have carried at our front page today, two National Security operatives have been arrested by the Asankragwa police in the Western Region for allegedly leading a gang to rob a mining company at Attala, also in the same Western Region. The two reportedly dressed in their military uniforms, invaded the mining site, and took hostage of the staff before executing the agenda of robbing them.
As the Akan adage goes, there is a ‘Mensah’ in every society, and the military, and National Security as a whole, are not exceptions to this. The Chronicle cannot, therefore, use this as a platform to launch an attack on our security set up. This notwithstanding, the truth also remains that if personnel from our National Security, who are supposed to provide protection for the citizens, turn round to rob the same people, then we have a serious problem on hand.
The development also raises questions as to whether the recruiting agencies did background checks on the suspects before they were recruited into the security set up. Some of these miscreants within both the army and police, we believe, are the characters who leak information to criminals whenever their outfit wants to conduct a swoop to arrest suspected criminals in our society.
To send strong signals that both the police and the military would not entertain this conduct any more, we advise Mr Kan Dapaah and his team to take particular interest in the case and ensure that these two national security operatives, if indeed they were involved in the robbery, have been dealt with according to the dictates of the law to serve as a deterrent to their colleagues who may be contemplating following their wrong footsteps.
We also suggest to Mr Kan Dapaah to ensure that only security personnel on duty are provided with weapons. Under no circumstance should a security personnel be carrying a sidearm when he or she is not on official duty. We need to instill discipline in our security set up, because the conduct of some of the personnel leaves much to desire.
The post Editorial: National Security operatives turn armed robbers? appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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