Northern Region of Ghana is perceived to be one of the conflict-prone areas, these perceptions mostly held by the people of the Southern part of the country and because of these perceptions anytime there is any problem, people just sit in their rooms or media stations and zoom every minor misunderstanding to elephant-size picture of the whole issue.
[ads1]This generalized perception is equally held by the country’s security forces and whenever they are sent to any town to protect the lives of the people, they go with the already stationed mind to brutalize the people even if unprovoked. There have been several instances where the security forces brutalize the innocent civilians without considering their dignity as humans.
I can vividly remember somewhere in 1994,95,96 the period of Konkomba –Nanumba conflicts, Military officers were seen raiding villages at dawn or midnight, set thatched houses ablaze and could move into any village and start beating up anybody they come across. In Chamba, a town in Nanumba North District where some of us were staying as internal refugees was heavily attacked with brutalities, we had no option than to always wake up at 3 am to run to the bush for our dear lives because the military used to go raiding communities, brutalizing, killing the people and burning the houses. Several people lost their lives through military actions apart from the lives lost during the open conflict grounds, yes! These are hidden revelations!
It was only the mercies of God that saved some of the people including me. These attitudes have not changed ever since, anytime the security forces are sent to any part of the Northern Region as a result of misunderstandings to maintain peace, they become more or less like the warmongers or rivals to the very people whose lives they are sent to protect. It is good to know as a security agent that not everybody who is at war or causes misunderstandings in conflict areas, there are few of those bad nuts while the majority maybe good so when the security agents brutalize everybody, it does not speak well of them.
The continuous brutalities from these security forces on the innocent unprovoked civilians are of great concern to us as citizens of this country. The last straws that broke the Carmel’s back on these brutalities is the treatment meted to the people of Kunjul community in the Soboba District where the military being influenced and directed stormed the community to brutalize and arrested 19 of the people after which they unwarrantedly invaded their privacy by forcefully entering their bed rooms to ransacked and took away 12 locally manufactured guns. They subsequently matched the victims to Yendi police station demanding their prosecutions! In fact! This reminded me of a Nigerian Dramatized movie entitled: Police Recruit; the first duty” where roughly trained police recruits were sent on their first assignment and they had to arrest innocent people, tied up their mouths and sent to their bosses claiming they were the criminals. It is good to note that when the follow ups was made to the affected community, it was revealed that, those people and their community were not involved in the Cheriponi land dispute clashes hence could not have armed themselves for anything. But the security forces were blindly led to the place through a lie to go and engage in those unprofessional acts! What a country?
There are other instances where those unprofessional acts of our security forces are being exhibited without and regulation from their superiors, The brutalities in Bimbilla has become a norm with the comments from them that the people are fools and they want to deal with them, it is disheartening to hear the kind of military brutalities meted out to the inhabitants of Bimbilla township a few months ago, a teacher who is not even a native of the town was brutalized and left with one of this eyes damaging claiming he breached curfew hours when in a fact, the curfew hours entangled him compelling him to seek refuge in a veranda of a structure by the road side. The Security forces are reported to have brutalize people snatching their wives and some engaging in animal killing and selling them out to nearby communities for money. It is common to see both military and police moving with canes or sticks along township roads beating the men who carry others on motorbikes saying there is a directive from their bosses that no man should carry another man while on motorbike within the township of Bimbilla, what an unknown law to the ruled!
It is high time our stakeholders of law enforcement considered the human rights of the people and accord them the necessary respects even in the conflict zones because if the people are fighting, they are not rebels to be brutalized by the military as it currently happens.
We need peace and not the kind of stones the security forces pelted at the people who pelt one another with pebbles.
By: Abraham Njonaan Nlenkiba
hamkiba@gmail.com
