National Coordinator of the District Road Improvement Programme (DRIP), Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, has strongly condemned the actions of a Ghana Air Force officer who was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman and a pharmacist at Burma Camp.
The officer, identified as Warrant Officer Class One (WO1) Mensah Williams, reportedly attached to the Office of the Chief of Staff, was arrested by military police after a viral video captured him physically attacking the victims inside a pharmacy within the camp.
According to sources within the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), the incident occurred earlier this week. The video shows a tall, dark-complexioned man angrily confronting a pharmacist before slapping him and then turning on a female customer who tried to record the altercation. The footage further depicts the soldier striking the woman several times on the head.
Reacting to the development in an interview on Channel One TV’s Breakfast Daily on Thursday, October 30, Mr. Vanderpuye described the incident as “horrible” and called for the soldier’s dismissal from the service.
“I don’t believe this is an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces. No military officer of the Ghana Armed Forces will do this. I don’t know what prompted him to hit the lady from the video we’re watching. This is so bad, it’s horrible. I wonder if he has a wife in the house to be hitting a woman like this,” he said.
He further stated that the officer’s behaviour was inconsistent with the discipline and ethics of the Ghana Armed Forces.
“I think this guy, as the colloquial people would say, has sacked himself. He has sacked himself. He’s not an officer; look at the chain on his neck. He may be a military personnel, not an officer, the distinction. No officer of GAF will behave this way, because the officers are specially trained,” he stated.
