Firefighting or Lawlessness? The Disturbing Conduct at Kasoa

At a time when national attention should be focused on critical governance issues, we find ourselves compelled to address the crude and uncivilised conduct displayed by some firefighters at Kasoa last Monday.

Ghanaians have rightly united in condemning the antiquated brutality meted out to a lone journalist by personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS). It was an act of shame—an imbecilic display—when individuals dispatched to save lives and property instead behaved like rogues whose actions could easily have caused harm to the very citizens they are paid by the state to protect.

As a nation, we believed we had left behind the outmoded era when uniformed officers assaulted compatriots outside the bounds of lawful order. The last notable incident of such brutish behaviour occurred in Tamale, when a student of the Tamale Technical University was assaulted by a police officer during a student demonstration.

Firefighters, by their professional calling, are not known to behave like hounds or hogs. Yet that is precisely how the Kasoa incident unfolded.

If the misconduct of the first responders was disheartening, the response issued by the GNFS Public Relations Unit was even more troubling. Whoever crafted that statement demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of crisis communication. Claiming that the offending personnel were assaulting a thief only deepened public outrage. Must a suspected thief be struck on the head with protective helmets, as the viral video clearly showed? Is this what they are taught at the Fire Training School? Is such nonsense part of firefighting drills? And how did such a poorly reasoned statement make it into the public domain without the Chief Fire Officer’s review?

It is worth noting that even before assaulting the Class FM reporter, the firefighters had already engaged in an altercation with bystanders at the scene. This suggests that an undisciplined team was deployed, leaving the public to suffer the consequences of their misconduct.

It is astonishing that after initially defending the actions of the personnel, the GNFS now claims to be investigating the incident. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the reporter filming the misconduct. If the firefighters believed their actions were justified, why were they so afraid of public scrutiny?

We must not allow a situation where firefighters, when responding to emergencies, turn their hoses and helmets into weapons of assault rather than tools for extinguishing fires and saving lives and property.

Although we have little confidence in the internal enquiry being conducted by GNFS management, we nonetheless insist that an apology be issued to the Ghanaian public even before the final report is released.