Ghana has been thrown into yet again a national mourning occasioned by the tragic death of six compatriots and others injured.
The incident occurred when an unusual surge in the number of prospective applicants responding to the 2025/2026 Ghana Armed Forces recruitment exercise led to a stampede.
Coming on the heels of the recent Ghana Air Force chopper crash report of which investigation was made public on Tuesday, the relevant authorities must explain to Ghanaians why they were not on top of the exercise.
Just like in the case of the chopper incident, this too was avoidable; a blunder in crowd management.
Were this to have happened in some jurisdictions, resignations would have been announced, failing which heads would have rolled.
We are in a digital age where technology should leverage upon all human endeavours.
Many questions will justifiably be posed by Ghanaians as to why the surge was not envisaged and adequate measures taken to obviate the incident which occurred.
Losing this number of our compatriots in their prime, the hope of their families and by extension the country, is something which should get us mulling.
Measures such as getting the applicants to turn up in batches would have gone a long way in obviating the casualties.
Many are still receiving emergency treatment at the 37 Military Hospital as we compose this leader.
This is unprecedented in the history of recruitment into the Armed Forces, which makes us even more curious.
As an institution which is not a novice in crowd control tactics, we are at our wit’s end as to how such a blunder could happen.
It is not enough for the Armed Forces Public Relations Directorate to issue a statement explaining what happened.
A statement which sought to ascribe the cause of the incident to a security breach on the part of the applicants is not only disingenuous but a feeble attempt at exonerating the military from blame.
There is no way in our opinion that the Military Police, were they adequately deployed to the location and equipped, could not have used appropriate barricades to control the large turnout of applicants. In any case, why did such a large number of applicants be made to converge on a single location such as the El Wak Stadium?
We foresee the setting up of a committee of enquiry to determine the cause of the stampede with a view to obviating future recurrence. Much as we regard this as a routine response when such incidents occur, we are not excited because reports thereof will only gather dust on the shelves of the Defence Ministry or The Square. Unemployment has pushed our youth to respond to any opportunity, especially recruitment into the security services. The sheer numbers responding to the opening of the recruitment season showed how unemployment has increased and remains a challenge for governments.
We express our condolences to the bereaved families who lost their loved ones when they went seeking employment.