{"id":190475,"date":"2021-05-30T11:32:32","date_gmt":"2021-05-30T09:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/ghanas-national-security-ministry-ignites-old-fears-after-fracas-over-photos\/"},"modified":"2021-05-30T11:32:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T09:32:32","slug":"ghanas-national-security-ministry-ignites-old-fears-after-fracas-over-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ghanas-national-security-ministry-ignites-old-fears-after-fracas-over-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana’s national security ministry ignites old fears after fracas over photos"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Caleb Kudah<\/a>, a journalist with the Accra-based Citi TV, didn\u2019t expect that an investigation into unused cars at the Ministry of National Security would kick a hornets\u2019 nest in the country \u2013 the role of the country\u2019s security apparatus. <\/p>\n

Kudah was investigating why cars purchased with public funds for distribution to transport unions had been abandoned at the premises of national security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ghana\u2019s security officials were unimpressed. They arrested Kudah, manhandled and cuffed him. They then took him to the premises of Citi TV offices<\/a> intent on destroying evidence. They also arrested his colleague with whom he had shared mobile-camera videos. <\/p>\n

The events shocked Ghanaians who were shown footage<\/a> of heavily armed members of a special tactics unit bursting into the offices of one of Ghana\u2019s leading media houses. The scene was reminiscent of action taken by the same unit during a parliamentary by-election<\/a> in January 2019 when the same special tactics unit assaulted voters and a sitting member of parliament.<\/p>\n

Civil rights groups and parliamentarians are demanding a probe<\/a> into the Kudah incident. <\/p>\n

The key question they\u2019re asking is whether the ministry\u2019s behaviour was in line with the 1992 constitution<\/a>. Its landmark tenet is its emphasis on civilian control and legislative oversight over Ghana\u2019s security agencies. <\/p>\n

Former president Jerry Rawlings<\/a>, who had come to power in a coup 1981, held a referendum in April 1992<\/a> on multiparty democracy. Over 92% people voted in favour. The idea was to put Ghana on an inclusive and democratic path. A key part of this was to curb the tendency of the security establishment to interfere in political processes. <\/p>\n

The 1996 Security and Intelligence Agencies Act<\/a> was the first law to be passed after Rawlings won the December 1996 elections. But the law hasn\u2019t protected civilians from abuse at the hands of national security operatives.<\/p>\n

A look back at how Ghana established its security services after independence provides clues about why.<\/p>\n

In a recent paper<\/a> I used previously untapped archives to explore how India built Accra\u2019s security service between 1958 and 1961. Ghana sought India\u2019s support when both Cold War rivalry and Afro-Asian solidarity were at a peak. The newly independent West African country was keen to reduce its dependency on the outgoing British colonial administration.<\/p>\n

But by involving high ranking Indian officials, Ghana inherited a similar set of problems that affected intelligence headquarters in Delhi. This included resorting to colonial policing methods such as oppressive tactics, a lack of legislative oversight and a recruitment system based on partisan loyalties instead of professionalism.<\/p>\n

Ghana continues to struggle with this legacy.<\/p>\n

Tumultuous history<\/h2>\n

Kwame Nkrumah<\/a>, Ghana\u2019s first prime minister and president, was conscious of the nature of colonial policing and intelligence. It was focused on torture, brutality, corruption, negligence, abuse, ineffectiveness, and differential treatment.<\/p>\n

To distance Ghana from colonial British practices, in 1957 he sought support from Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru<\/a>. The idea was to benefit from independent India\u2019s experience. <\/p>\n

Indian officers ended up creating, and unofficially leading, a whole new intelligence agency \u2013 the Foreign Service Research Bureau<\/a>. Its role was to provide \u201creliable intelligence and counter-intelligence capability to protect Ghana\u2019s independence<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It soon became clear that Ghana had imported problems that had plagued Indian intelligence services. The bad habits crossed over from the external to the internal agencies.<\/p>\n

There were three key problems. <\/p>\n

One, the Indian mastermind of Ghana\u2019s Foreign Service Research Bureau was the Director of the Intelligence Bureau of India, Bhola Nath Mullik<\/a>. Ghana, like India, had a huge network of police stations and officers across the country who could deliver critical intelligence. This should have been a positive. However, it ended up strengthening colonial policing practices and mindsets like intimidation and corruption.<\/p>\n

Policing became conflated with intelligence. Intelligence gathering is an important part of policing. But it is only a small part of the job. Drawing spies mostly from the policing cadre risks confusing core competencies. Risks are even higher if spies are drawn from a policing service that has been trained and created by a colonial power that saw people as \u201csubjects\u201d, not \u201ccitizens\u201d. <\/p>\n

The result is an intelligence agency more prone to using invasive and coercive practice \u2013 and becoming highly politicised. <\/p>\n

Second, Nkrumah used bureau as a vehicle of patronage. Even the first two officers trained by (and in) India, Paul Yankee and Benjamin Forjoe<\/a>, were from the Nzema tribe, the same as Nkrumah. <\/p>\n

Such favouritism laid the foundation for endemic corruption and indiscipline in Ghana\u2019s security sector. <\/p>\n

Third, in a five-page top-secret note<\/a> Mullik recommended immense concentration of power in Nkrumah\u2019s office. Similar to India, where intelligence agencies were beyond the purview of parliament<\/a> \u2013 still the case today \u2013 this recommendation effectively gave Nkrumah direct access to coercive arms of the state without any checks and balances. <\/p>\n

He used his power to cultivate loyalties and crush dissent. By early 1960s, such unchecked power had fed Nkrumah\u2019s authoritarianism to such an extent that he made himself president for life<\/a>. And Ghana a one-party state. <\/p>\n

Nkrumah\u2019s authoritarianism forestalled democratic progress and politicised Ghana\u2019s security establishment. <\/p>\n

Nkrumah was ousted in a military-led coup in February 1966<\/a>, triggering a highly turbulent phase in Ghanaian history.<\/p>\n

Speaking truth to power<\/h2>\n

As the recent incident demonstrates, maintaining legislative oversight over security establishments is an ongoing process, not a one-off event. It has to be proactively maintained. And any successes can never to be taken for granted. <\/p>\n

Ghana has come a long way from the era of Nkrumah and the post-Nkrumah coups d\u2019\u00e9tat and has a lot to cherish in its decisive break from authoritarianism in 1992. <\/p>\n

But a genuinely free press is never fully in the interest of a corrupt bureaucracy and a politicised security establishment. Kudah, his colleagues, and those parliamentarians and civil rights groups seeking a probe into this incident are continuing a hard-won Ghanaian tradition of speaking truth to power.<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caleb Kudah, a journalist with the Accra-based Citi TV, didn\u2019t expect that an investigation into unused cars at the Ministry of National Security would kick a hornets\u2019 nest in the country \u2013 the role of the country\u2019s security apparatus. Kudah was investigating why cars purchased with public funds for distribution to transport unions had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":190476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-190475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ghanas-national-security-ministry-ignites-old-fears-after-fracas-over-photos.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}