Dr Jamal Tonzua Seidu, an Energy and Environmental Law and Sustainability Consultant, has criticised the government’s use of the military in tackling illegal mining (galamsey), labeling it as an abuse of the constitution and the military’s mandate.
His comments come in response to the government’s directive to deploy military personnel to combat galamsey.
Speaking on Citi FM‘s “Citi Breakfast Show” on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, Dr Seidu argued that the military’s involvement in internal matters like illegal mining operations contradicts their constitutional role.
He referred to Article 210, Clause 3 of the 1992 Constitution, which outlines the military’s core responsibilities.
“I think the manner in which we use the military is an abuse of our constitution. Under clause 3 of Article 210, the military has a mandate of defence. There is a possessive adjective ‘their role of defence’ of the Republic of Ghana as well as such other functions as the president may determine. If you want to read this for it to be helpful, first of all, ‘their role’ is critical. This means that people have other roles as far as our institution is concerned and the constitution carves out defence for the Ghana Armed Forces.
“The second point says such other roles as the president may determine. So, the earlier one is the primary role of the armed forces which is defence. The second role which is necessary for development as the president may determine, so, if you ask me, there is a core and traditional mandate of defence from external aggression but the development role under which I will say the internal security operations, the Ghana Armed forces fall are secondary and I think that we are abusing that.
“The military is a self-contained institution, very conservative and they are not the broker of people. I know the military elements are not excited about the way they are being abused whenever there are serious policy issues and out of laziness, we securitise it and deploy them in, there is a lot of grumbling,” Dr Seidu stated.
