Sacked army recruits push for reinstatement

Some recruits who were dismissed from the Ghana Armed Forces will be holding a peace walk today, Monday June 6, to back their demand for their reinstatement.

The recruits, who were undergoing training at the Army Recruits Training School at Shai Hills, were dismissed for misconduct last year.

The affected personnel subsequently denied the claim and petitioned authorities to rescind the decision. But spokesperson for the group, Sampson Odje, told Class News their pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

“Since we came home, we were advised to send a petition to the Chief of Defence Staff, parliament, the president, and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and we also sent a petition to the Ministry of Defence and up to now, we have not heard anything from them,” he stated.

“It is as if there is a new enlistment going on, so we are just trying to do that to announce our presence in case they have forgotten about us. We are still there, still hoping that they will consider our petition and then reinstate us for us to continue the training and become soldiers because we still have the zeal to be soldiers.”

According to him, reports that they were demonstrating at the training camp were false because soldiers do not demonstrate.

“It was not a demonstration that we were doing, even the service they don’t demonstrate. Earlier, that was the news that came out that we demonstrated at the training ground, which is never true. In the petition, we wrote everything, how things happened out there, and we sent it but we haven’t heard anything from them,” he added.