General News of Monday, 17 February 2020

Source: starrfm.com.gh

Bryan Acheampong’s reaction to Short Commission reprehensible – Bonaa

Security analyst Adam Bonaa Security analyst Adam Bonaa

Security analyst Adam Bonaa says the outburst of Bryan Acheampong towards the recommendation of the Emile Short Commission is reprehensible and unfortunate.

According to him, considering the fact that the minister of state at the interior ministry is a public servant, he was expected to be measured in his utterances.

“The right thing to do is to go to a higher court to challenge their recommendation you don’t throw tantrums, there are no tantrums in our constitution.

“As a young man and a public officer, I thought he would have been measured but his reaction is very reprehensible. Very unfortunate,” Mr. Bonaa told Morning Starr Monday.

Bryan Acheampong has described the recommendation by the Emile Short Commission that he should be reprimanded by the state over the Ayawaso byelection violence as bogus.

According to him, there was no testimony or evidence at the commission hearing that links him directly to the chaos that shocked the nation during the election to replace the deceased MP Emmanuel Agyarko.

Speaking to Agoo FM over the weekend, Mr. Acheampong described the recommendation by the Short commission that he should be reprimanded as bogus.

“If you look at the report, about five hundred pages, nothing puts me in the circle. Yet strangely enough, in the recommendation, somebody went and wrote that I must take ultimate responsibility, why must I take ultimate responsibility? And if I decide that I will not accept responsibility; because there is nothing that says I’m responsible. If I’m responsible, I’m a man, a trained soldier, I’m responsible for my men and I will take responsibility for and anything the ministry does.

“But if you come out and put individual liability then you must come with proof and say that I gave the command, instruction and I signed out the order other than that you place the liability on the ministry mot me as a person because that evidence never came out at the commission. In the recommendation they were recommending that I take responsibility, how can you recommend that I take responsibility.

"It’s a fact-finding commission who can say Bryan did XYZ, you cannot go on a fact-finding mission and say that I’m recommending someone to take responsibility, how do you make such a recommendation. Even when I had not accepted responsibility because there is no proof, you go ahead and say I should be reprimanded, it is strange. These are high commissioners, I don’t want to use any unpalatable words but that all I can say is that that whole decision is absolutely bogus”.