[ 2021-02-13 ]

Ben Ephson gives thumbs up to Commander who deployed soldiers to parliament
Pollster and Managing Editor of the Dispatch Ben
Ephson has given thumps up to the Commander who
ordered the soldiers to storm the chamber of
Parliament to douse the pandemonium during the
election of a speaker for the 8th Parliament.


Mr Epshon explained on the Key Points on TV3
Saturday February 13, that the best descision any
commander could have taken under the circumstance,
was to have deployed his men to deal with the
situation in order to forestall any destruction to
life and property.



His comments come on the heels of the explanation
given by National Security Minister-designate,
Albert Kan Dapaah on the intervention of the
military in parliament which has been condemned by
several dignitaries including former President
John Dramani Mahama.

Mr Kan Dapaah told the Appointments Committee of
Parliament during his vetting on Wednesday
February 10, that the President and other
government officials were unhappy that soldiers
stormed the legislature during the election of the
Speaker for the 8th Parliament on 7th January
2020.

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He said the Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) has been
asked to investigate the matter for the
appropriate measures to be taken.

“This is obviously a strange thing when you have
soldiers going into parliamentary chamber for
whatever reason. When I saw it, I was also
alarmed, my colleagues were alarmed, all of us in
government were alarmed that something like that
has happened. So I did take the trouble to find
out how it happened.



“Somebody, a commander, in his opinion, thought
that things were getting out of hand in the
chamber and that they needed to go there to try to
restore order.

“I posed the question, what order? Did you think
your presence there was going to frighten the
Members of Parliament? No! You were not going to
be able to frighten them. Were you going to arrest
them? No. You couldn’t have arrested them.

“So I asked why? What was the motivation? I can
only say that this is not something that should
have happened. Going forward this is not something
that we should encourage.”

He added: “The CDS has been asked to investigate
the matter and to take the appropriate action if
he also comes to the conclusion that what was done
was unprofessional.”



Sharing his views on this development, Mr Ben
Epshon told host of the Key Point Abena Tabi that
“When a commander takes decision he is
responsible for it. I believe that being outside
the interior of what was happening and nobody
hadn’t briefed him, if I were to give the
commander a pass mark for his initiative at the
time, I will give him an A.

“Because when you are outside the perimeter of
parliament and you hear angry words exchanges, the
soldiers came in they came in with a very
dignified manner.”

He added “The other side of the coin was, if the
commander had just stood outside and pardon my
language , the MPs had knives on them and decided
to stab each other will we have criticised the
officer in charge of the military that when they
heard the noise why didn’t he intervened?”

Source - 3 News

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