Lockdown brutalities: GAF admits civilian hitting military officer video (Audio)

The Director of Public Relations for the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Colonel Eric Aggrey Quarshie, has admitted that a viral video that shows a civilian hitting a military officer at Tafo in the Old Tafo municipality in the Ashanti region happened during lockdown dutieon Tuesday.

This was in a sharp contrast in an earlier statement he issued on Wednesday denying the said video is an old video that has no relation to the lockdown operations being carried out by military and police currently to control the spread of the coronavirus disease.

In the video, the military officer had ordered the civilian to sit-ups as a punishment for defying the lockdown directives, but the civilian took an offence, punched the military officer and ran away.

But, however, in an interview on Otec FM’s morning shows ‘Nyansapo’, hosted by Captain Koda, on Thursday, April 2, 2020, Col Quarshie described the incident as unfortunate and said the military officer’s conduct did not send a good picture about the image of the respected Ghana Armed Forces.

“Our men were not sent out to brutalize the civilians. The provoked officer wouldn’t have crocked the weapon, whether in an attempt to scare the civilian or not. The bullet could have gone off and killed someone. He should have handed him to the next senior person to handle the matter. But whatever it is, it didn’t send a good picture,” he added.

The public has condemned some brutalities melted on them by the joint military/police patrol deployed in the Greater Accra, Greater Kumasi and Tema during the two weeks lockdown aimed at controlling the spread of CONVID-19.

There have been series of incidents at those places where the security are captured on video tapes purportedly abusing some individuals who refused to comply with the President’s directives on two weeks partial lockdown.

Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com/Francis Appiah