Inject some dose of military discipline into our lives
I have always admired the officers and men of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), particularly their comportment and discipline.
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They are also made up of knowledgeable men and women with immense nationalistic and patriotic credentials.
Over the years, in my practice as a journalist, I have met some senior military officers, as well as the other ranks, at various fora and social events. My general assessment of the military is that it is the very epitome of hard work and dedicated service in this country.
I remember when I was a young boy growing up in my ‘holy village’. In those times there were some men and women from Kroboland who served in the military and who, through hard work, got to the very top of their careers and were considered as some of the most accomplished military officers in the GAF.
There were the likes of the late Col. Ebenezer Tetteh Oklah, who at one time served as the Commissioner for Finance; Lt. Col. Lawrence K. Kodjiku (retd), who also served as a Regional Commissioner, both of them during the National Redemption Council/Supreme Military Council One and Two regimes; Col. Winfried Annor Odjidja, a former Director of the Military Intelligence and Col. Dr. F.F.T. Djabanor of St Luke’s Clinic;
Others were Major Ted Tetteh (retd), a former Eastern Regional Minister under the first National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration; Major Gen. Joseph Narh Adinkrah, a former Chief of Army Staff; Air Commodore Philip Ayisah, now the Base Commander in Tamale, my own cousins Group Captain Frank Okyne (retd) and Flt. Lt. Tei Azu (retd), the CEO of CitiLink, among others.
Besides, there were some of my schoolmates, both in secondary school and at the tertiary level, who either served or continue to serve in the military.
I had all along told my military friends about the admiration and respect I had for them and how I had always wished to be in the military, especially when I completed Sixth Form.
But for the attitude of an ‘eccentric’ Warrant Officer who put the fear of God in me during the selection exercise at the Burma Hall which made me run for my dear life, I would either have been serving or have served Ghana in my capacity as a military officer.
I decided to give this background on the military because of what I saw at the Military Cemetery, Osu, Accra, last Friday (my first visit) when I joined other mourners to pay our last respects to Col Peter Mama Agbeko (retd), the father one of our media colleagues, Mr Peter S.M. Agbeko Jnr (Pierro).
In fact, the neatness and orderliness at the Military Cemetery struck me, especially when I compared the situation there to what pertained at the public cemeteries such as Awudome, Osu , Mile 7 and 11, as well as other cemeteries across the country.
The scenery and the well-manicured grass, the orderly positioning of the graves and the simple and uniformed way of designing the tombstones spoke volumes about the discipline and the respect for law and order associated with the military.
I was overwhelmed and asked my colleagues who were at the cemetery why everything about the military looked different from the situation of the civilian populace.
The answer was not far-fetched and the conclusion we all arrived at was that while the military has respect for authority and laid down rules and procedures, majority of us in the civilian populace always want to cut corners and ignore simple instructions that could go a long way to make life better for us.
What we all said and laughed over was that ‘even in death the military still have discipline as its watchword’.
I think it is this kind of thinking that had informed some personalities, including the current leader of the Great Consolidated Popular Party, Dr Henry Lartey, to call for the introduction of strict military discipline as the fulcrum of our daily lives.
By his suggestion, I believe Dr Lartey is trying to infer that the sort of phobia Ghanaians harboured for the military during the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council/Provisional National Defence Council, both under the leadership of Jerry Rawlings should be revisited.
Well. it won’t be a bad idea but I do not think we should put the fear of God in Ghanaians in order to get them to conform to issues that bordered on discipline.
What all of us have to do as a nation is to ensure that rules and regulations as well as laws that govern the state and its people should be enforced to the letter and obeyed.
Our attitudes reflect what society stood for. I, therefore, find it sad and unpardonable that the Accra Metropolitan Authority, which has the mandate of keeping Accra clean and devoid of diseases such as cholera could shirk its responsibilities until the Vice President moves in to locations where large volumes of garbage had been left unattended to before the leadership of the Assembly decides to act. What a shame!
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Ghanaians want a leadership that believes in working in the interest of the people while the governed did its best to change the negative attitudes which have retarded the development of this country.
We can wholly achieve this if we inject a little dose of military discipline into our lives as well as our way of doing things.