COMMANDO TRAINEES PASS OUT

…This weekend at Asutsuare
The first batch of Commando-Trainees, otherwise known as 64 Battalion Unit, currently undergoing training exercise at the Asutsuare Military Training base will graduate this Saturday, November 14, 2009.

In all 192 Commando-Trainees are expected to pass out after going through a rigorous three weeks military exercises.

Typical of their secret undercover detail since the exercise begun, the Saturday ceremony is shut from the general public. Family members, relatives, friends and well wishers of the graduates, TODAY discovered, are barred from attending the ceremony.

Although this paper has blown the lid on the activities of the trainees, the National Security which is the main organizer of the trainee programme is still struggling to offer both the exercise and the graduation ceremony an aura of strict anonymity, hence the decision to bar the general public from attending the weekend programme.

In line with its cover up of the training exercise, the graduation ceremony, TODAY's sorties had discovered, will be under strict security surveillance for the entire duration that the programme is expected to last.

State officials have struggled rather embarrassingly to justify the training of the would-be Commandos in a manner that only undermines government's freeze on recruitment into the Ghana Army, the Police Service and other security organizations.

While Interior Minister Cletus Avoka contends that the trainees would be integrated into the security patrol teams to combat armed robbery and other nefarious activities, the head of the Public Affairs Directorate of the Ghana Armed Forces, Col E.W.K. Nibo, said they were being trained to be part of the VIP wing of the Presidential Guards.

But the reality on the ground, as TODAY gathered, is far from what seemed to be the twists and turns being churned out by officialdom on the issue.

TODAY's discovered that the training is one of the avenues that the NDC government is keeping faith with its campaign promise of offering jobs to its foot soldiers. And the complexion and character of the group, TODAY findings have established offer ample reason that the training is purely, partisan.

Some of them, TODAY's undercover discoveries have established, are card-bearing members of the ruling party who openly displayed the party's paraphernalia while on the spot training.

There was visible display of their partisan outlook when the group was feted at the house of Majority Chief Whip and MP for Prampram, Hon. Enoch Tei Mensah recently.

The instructors of the group are well known NDC adherents, some who belonged to the dreadful 64 Battalion of the first NDC administration who resigned from the Ghana Army under protest against the decision by the previous Kufuor administration to integrate them into the regular army.

Some of the protestors who sojourned in foreign countries throughout the eight year period of the Kufuor administration returned in the run-up to the 2008 elections, to be part of the campaign programme of the NDC and Prof. Mills.

As a mark of reward, most of them have been re-instated into the National Security apparatus with all manner of designations. Others too, as the paper discovered have become integral part of the security arrangements of many NDC top-shots.

Originating at www.theghanaianjournal.com