A former Chief of Defense Staff, Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, has attributed the massive number of Ghanaian youth turning up for military recruitment to the high unemployment rate in the country. He believes this could have dangerous implications for the quality of personnel in the army.
“There are no jobs for the youth, so whatever job is available, they are going for it not because they want to serve the nation in that capacity, but because they are jobless and hungry.” “That is a very dangerous thing because when you do that, you don’t get quality people to serve the nation in either the police or the military,” Nunoo-Mensah stated.
On Monday, thousands of Ghanaians thronged the El Wak Sports Stadium in Accra to participate in a documentation and medical screening process for recruitment into the Ghana Armed Forces. This has been the trend for some years now.
From as early as 4:00 am applicants started a queue that stretched for over four kilometres. This was after the announcement from the Ghana Armed Forces informing the public of the commencement of a recruitment exercise back in May. The Army is expected to recruit some 1,000 personnel from the applicants in the Greater Accra Region.