Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo Lartey, National Security Coordinator
Ghanaians should brace themselves-up for real challenging days ahead. This follows the deviant posture of government through the National Security Council (NSC) to continue with its deliberately rehearsed strategy of reducing the country into a commando state.
The latest destination of the state security apparatus to continue with the training of commandos is the Volta Region where some 30 trainees are currently undergoing rigorous training regiment at Afiadenyigba, near Akatsi Abor. The training started last week and is expected to end tomorrow.
The trainees, as our lenses captured, are being kept in three hired houses; believed to be owned by some top members of the ruling party. The training base is located in a secondary forest, near the Afiadenyigba cemetery. The site was cleared by bulldozers last week under the stern supervision of officials from the National Security.
Although the clearing of the land had the full backing of chiefs and owners of the land, the strong presence of National Security personnel helped to ward off any inquisition by residents and indigenes of the area.
Today gathered that the NSC decided to shelve the initial idea of camping the commandos at Ho, the Volta Regional capital, when it became obvious that the other trainings which were done in Accra and Kumasi had been discovered by the paper.
In fact Today blew the lid on the recent commando training in Kumasi where 26 trainees passed out at the Da Nyame suburb, near Miklin hotel. Before then, other trainees numbered about 500 had passed out at secret trainings at Asutsuare and Accra.
Top NSC official, Alhaji Yartey, was at the Afiadenyigba training camp last Monday to order for cessation of the training, but later through an order from National Security headquarters in Accra asked the instructors to continue with the exercise.
Like the previous training in Accra and Kumasi, the instructors are themselves former commandos during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) junta and the first National Democratic Congress (NDC) civilian administration of Jerry John Rawlings.
Some of them quit the service when former President Kufuor decided to integrate them into the regular army and sojourned in neighbouring Equatorial Guinea, but returned anytime there was an election in the country to help the NDC.
As usual the trainees are foot-soldiers of the ruling party, some of whom had been part of NDC agitators who had been strongly advocating for jobs as promised by then candidate Mills in the run-up to the 2008 election. But the commando training, Today discovered, is embedded with other ideas other than the provision of jobs for the many unemployed youth of the NDC.
Aside from the fact that the training had offered jobs for the many NDC youth, the ulterior motive is to ensure that the commandos become part of government’s agents who would be watching over its interest at the polling stations during the 2012 election. The paper gathered that most of them will be certified polling agents of the NDC in the coming election.
National Security Advisor, Brigadier General Nunoo-Mensah, had persistently denied the training of the commandos and insisted that personnel who passed at previous training in Accra and Asutsuare were expected to manage the VIP unit of the presidential security.
Former Interior Minister, Cletus Avoka, also confirmed that the trainees are being earmarked to augment the VIP wing of the presidential security. It is, however, not clear whether the security wing of the presidency requires as many as more than 500 security personnel.
Security watchers are wondering the kind of answer that the Brigadier and his other colleagues within the state security apparatus will offer for the continuous training of commandos throughout the country.
Today can however report on authority that graduands of the previous exercises have either been posted to the National Security, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) and the regular army where their salaries are picked-up by such security agencies.
They are expected to continue with their grilling exercise at their respective security bases in order to master the robes and carry out “effectively” the role of keeping watch on the polling station election in 2012.