The 4th Infantry Battalion of the Ghana Armed Forces says it is intensifying its engagement with the public to erase negative perceptions civilians hold about the military.
The Command says some excesses recorded on the part of some military officers in the line of duty have left a certain perception about the Ghana Armed Forces with the public that ought to be dealt with.
The Service has thus adopted social interaction events to improve the relationship between the military and civilians.
The Commanding Officer at the 4th Infantry Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Kwesi Wari Peprah in an interview with Citi News cited the recent shooting incident at Ejura saying that if the public had frequent close engagements with the military, claims that the military were trigger-happy and fired at residents unprovoked would not have been made, noting that the negative perception about the military worsened the matters at the time.
He spoke during a Breakfast Meeting with Friends of the Unit organised by 4BN which was on the theme ‘Enhancing Civil-Military relationship.’
“When the Ejura issue came up, some people made it look as if it was fun for a soldier to open fire and kill people because of the perception they had, but if we are able to draw you close to us and you interact with us and you get to know and understand us well, then you can appreciate some of these things when it happens,” he said.
He added that the military will look at many of such engagements with the public to enable them to assess incidents involving the military from an informed position.
“You will have the opportunity and chance to contact us when incidents like this happen because a lot of what people talk out of ignorance and from a lay man’s understanding and not from an expert’s point of view. There is the need for us to interact, so this is one of the lined-up activities that we intend to do in order to bridge the gap.”
