Barbaric, Unsoldier-like

The military institution is hinged on discipline, an attribute which sets it apart from other state agencies.

Blemishes such as the one recorded in Tamale when a boy was brutalised alongside his sister by unruly soldiers made worrying digestion: it even prompted cynical questions about whether the dark days are not back with us.

The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), we can bet, has already demanded a report from the General Officer Commanding the Northern Command.

The treatment the wee-smoking soldiers meted out to the sixteen-year-old boy, for want of a better expression, is barbaric and unbecoming of soldiers in a civilised country.

Regrettably, the soldiers who should have been in the guardroom awaiting for orders are walking about in Tamale as though they are not bound by both the civil and military laws which abhor such animalistic conduct.

The two soldiers are the kind who can easily disgrace their country when they go on peacekeeping missions. Soldiers who think that the military is about misbehaving through such brutal behaviour are in the wrong profession.

The danger in brushing this nonsense under the carpet is that younger soldiers might consider it as a norm. We cannot afford to have our soldiers behave with impunity, thinking erroneously that being in uniform bestows upon them the right to do as they please.

It is not for nothing that soldiers are taught to take orders and not to do things on their own. That is part of the discipline military training is supposed to instil in soldiers from their recruit days.

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If the Commanding Officer of the Airborne Force glosses over the conduct of Cpl Collins Agyei Boamah and Cpl Atuahene, then we would be compelled to review our impression of the military.

Ghana has a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping pedigree – a rating which should not be tarnished by the misconduct of such undisciplined soldiers.

Not even Boko Haram militants would treat their captives the way the soldiers did to the teenager. Assuming the mobile phone was stolen by him, did they have the right to do what they did to him? The picture painted about the boy after his captors were done with their mission was that of a sorry sight.

Equally worrying is the near neglect of the Tamale Military Hospital at Kamina, Tamale. We are tempted to find out whether the personnel of the facility are oblivious of the convention governing the medical profession, even under conditions of war.

How else can we describe a situation where a victim of brutality from unruly soldiers is left to his fate without treatment and even chained to his bed by those who should know better?

If indeed that happened to the young man at the military medical facility, the personnel there must face their superiors in the case which outcome would go a long way in controlling the seeming growing incidence of impunity by bad security elements who have found themselves into otherwise disciplined security organisations.

They allegedly smoked Indian hemp and even trained weapons on the poor boy as though soldiers are immune from the laws of the land.

Should the teenager now in critical condition die, the two soldiers should face murder definitely. Just what the hell is happening to our country?