Editorial: The Truth Is Out!

A victim with a rifle muzzle in his mouth The growing phenomenon of denials and rubbishing of stories by mostly officialdom is worrying in a country which seeks to record growth for her institutions and therefore governance. Monday, we managed to lay hands on a video footage of two persons stripped naked by soldiers on internal security operations in troubled Bawku in the Upper East Region. When we carried the story without pictures to, as it were, support the aberration, many in officialdom rubbished it. Fortunately for us, we managed to lay hands on the tell-tale pictures of the anomaly and this put paid to the attempts by people in authority to rubbish the story and cast us in bad light. The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), unfortunately without adequate information, jumped into the fray when he delivered a speech to close an inter-service shooting competition. The function had in attendance the crème la crème of the military and so the delivery of the CDS, the equivalent of the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff of US Forces, was special and went far. But the pictures have deflated his delivery and cast a shadow on the quality of the periodic briefings he gets from his subordinates. In this particular instance, we are referring to an investigation which the CDS said was undertaken to ascertain the authenticity of the story as carried by the Daily Guide and subsequently, some FM stations across the country. It has turned out that the result of the so-called investigation was flawed and must definitely be discountenanced in the face of the compelling evidence in the form of the video footage which has already gone round the world. It would be in their interest and the nation at large when top officials like the CDS ensure that the right things are done before they come out with categorical statements like the one delivered by the military chief. The tendency for our security agents to be violent when circumstances do not warrant the unseemly conduct is deplorable. Soldiers in this country have the unenviable record of meting out atrocities on poor civilians and even death. This has not helped civilian/military relationship over the years. It is worthwhile to recall that in the previous regime, productive efforts were embarked upon to reverse the unacceptable and primordial behaviour. Given the critical role of our Armed Forces in peacekeeping missions across the world, the stigma of trampling upon the human rights of citizens by soldiers should be the last thing we should countenance in the country. As officers/gentlemen, commanders should be able to ensure that their men behave in accordance with military procedures, humanely and without trampling upon the rights of others outside the colours. Nowhere in military training are soldiers taught to be unruly to the extent of mis-conducting themselves the way the footage showed. Even policemen, to a lesser extent, have also showed the tendency to be brutish to suspects in their custody. Empirical evidence abounds to this effect and as we grow as a nation, such developments must be confined to the dustbin of history. As for the spate of denials, we advise that officialdom shuns it because of its proclivity to reduce the esteem and respectability of governance. Politicians often rubbish stories when we put them out as though these are manufactured in our news rooms. Yes, we are humans and therefore like others, fallible. We could make genuine mistakes and when we do, would be quick to apologise and make amends but manufacture or distort facts, we would not do. In Buipe, we reported that there were gunshots when the Vice President was there on official assignment. Officialdom denied it contrary to reality. In other jurisdictions, the ultimate action of resignation would have been invoked by those who are exposed for trying to hide the truth. Not so with ours where such a feature is alien. We would continue to present the news as we deem fit in accordance with the principles of truth, devoid of tendentiousness and above all in accordance with the ethics of our enterprise. God help us all as we work towards a better Ghana. Credit: Daily Guide/Ghana