Scandals and reform in Ghana’s security sector: Opportunities arising from revelations by Interior, Defence ministers

In this opinion piece, I engage with some key issues that stem from the revelations in the press briefings by the ministers of the Interior and Defence.

This first part addresses why the (alleged) problems are important, and I do so by placing them within a broader context of Security Sector Governance and Reform (SSG/R) and providing examples to back my observations and claims.

To begin my piece, I  provide an introduction and context. This section is followed by a long engagement with the alleged scandal around recruitment into the security services and what that means for trust and confidence in the sector. I end this part one with some pointers to what one must expect in part two. 

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Introduction and context

In July 2025, both casual and keen observers of the Ghanaian security sector were jolted out of their seats by certain revelations made by the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence, respectively.  The first shock was the depth and scale of the recruitment scandals associated with the various security agencies, and the other was what looks like poor stockpile management of several of the state-owned magazines (and one could infer their armouries as well).  In this context, I use ‘Stockpile management’ to mean: 

“Specific technical areas related to the safety and security of ammunition and explosives in accounting, storage, transportation and handling. In addition, it refers to issues such as the determination of stockpile size, types of stockpiles, location of stockpiles and the management of ammunition in service” [Saferworld Small Arms and Light Weapons Control Training manual file:///Users/emmanuel/Downloads/SALW-module-9.pdf  

Also, when I say scandal, I adopt the meaning from the Cambridge dictionary, as follows ‘(an action or event that causes) a public feeling of shock and strong moral disapproval. [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/scandal]

These eye-openers that were revealed by the two ministers were not only significant developments, but also sharply questioned how Ghana manages certain core areas of her Security Sector Governance and Reform (SSG/R), which are crucial to its peace, stability, and development in a considerably challenging region. In other words, how strong is her democratic governance of her security sector? For some of us, such open revelations and the debates they spark present a unique chance for reforms, aimed at strengthening Ghana’s security through more effective oversight and accountability mechanisms. I still believe this, even if the revelations are viewed as opportunistic. In this vein, my honest, straightforward opinion is that neither of the two major political parties has completely clean hands in this matter. 

From a criminological perspective, these revelations could potentially further undermine the legitimacy of the security institutions and, consequently, weaken the peace, security, and development in Ghana. To understand fully what these revelations imply for national security, it is important to place them within a broader context of the sectoral developments by considering recent and wider events. Some examples will illustrate this point. Beyond the revelations by the two ministers, recent findings by Transparency International, the Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI), studies by UNODC, and various Afrobarometer reports paint an unflattering picture of the sector. Ghana was downgraded in a recent GDI report, and Afrobarometer reports consistently point to a legitimacy deficit within the sector. Furthermore, Eboe Hutchful, Humphrey Asamoah Agyekum, and Ben Kunbour (2021)have also offered concerning observations about the state of democratic oversight of the Ghana Armed Forces, noting that:

 “All these grim indicators convey worrisome signals of governance and developmental failures that are at odds with Ghana’s celebrated image abroad, and reflected in a pervasive sense of disquiet within Ghana itself.”

Why is recruitment important to the security sector? 

Let's concentrate on the police (history), as police research is my main area of expertise, and then draw on developments in that field to illustrate and support my points. Over a century ago, Robert Peel, who is regarded as one of the (if not the) primary architects of modern policing, emphasised the importance of police recruitment for the organisation's success. Writing at a time when appointments in British society were largely influenced by patronage, Peel warned against adopting this practice for police recruitment. For instance, in December 1829, he addressed three commissions on the matter, cautioning that:

“All nominations for the police as well as original nominations as promotions from inferior stations, should depend exclusively upon character, qualifications and services of the persons selected ... I am convinced that on the strict adherence to this principle, must entirely depend the efficiency and character of the new establishment”. 

In reinforcing the seriousness that Peel attached to recruitment, Douglas Hurd (2007), in his book Robert Peel: A Biography, takes up the issue of how Peel saw recruitment as a critical variable within the broader scheme of making the police effective. Hurd posited that: 

“Peel understood that the success of the new force would depend not soo much on its legal powers as on the quality of men picked to staff it…He took corresponding trouble over  recruitment of the bulk of the new force…” 

In essence, Peel was keenly aware that the integrity of the recruitment process and the quality of the people who staffed the police had serious, multidimensional repercussions with regard to the level of trust and confidence of the people. In essence, he wanted to safeguard the legitimacy of the police. This legitimacy, or trust and confidence in the police would ultimately affect the police’s ability to deliver the expected service. In today’s criminological sense, he was answering the question of “the Basic Legitimation Expectation” The admiration that people have for the police in the UK (despite several challenges with minorities, the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, etc) can be partly attributable to the legacy of Peel, including the foundation he laid concerning how the police should be staffed. 

One more thing on recruitment. Public Service Motivation has been extensively studied to establish how it affects organisations, including the security sector’s performance. Like other social sciences, the literature is both consistent and varied in many ways, but what experts rarely dispute is the fact that recruitment is essential to organisational development (and I would add their legitimacy). Unless the security agencies, including the police, Armed Forces and so on, attract and retain the right calibre of people, their long-term effect on our national security will be catastrophic. When sham recruitment processes define how we staff our security agencies, it is merely a matter of time before we pay dearly for this. 

In the last few days, General Anyidoho (rtd) expressed this concern and what it portends for the country’s security. Many securocrates have highlighted this trepidation also, and such exposes offer opportunity for meaningful reforms, not just lengthy debates.  

All the long attention on police recruitment is important because the police are front and centre of any criminal justice system and have an enormous and wide range of discretionary powers that affect almost everyone. In this light, Barley (2006) suggests that the health of a democratic state can be assessed by the quality of its policing; thus, it would be contradictory to say a state is democratic if its policing is characterised by human rights violations, discriminatory practices, (recruitment) corruption and so on. The police, then, are the concrete manifestations of the state, or, as Punch (2010) opines,  “police officers are state made flesh

They stand out. even among what Michael  Lypsky describe as street-level bureaucrats, who have such huge discretionary powers.  Added to such powers is the fact that police occupation is one of the most morally challenging fields, replete with ethical dilemmas and the constant temptation/lure of different forms of corruption 

In Ghana, various round of Afrobarometer reports shows the police and other state security agencies suffer from a legitimacy deficit or lack of trust and confidence. Such alleged scandals do not help in reversing the perception/trend but only reinforce it.   In essence, every aspect of police work must be subject to robust oversight. Left unattended, the organisation can become a beast- and this is why the revelations by the Minister of the Interior must attract public attention and trigger meaningful reforms. 

The other issue that was raised by the Minister of Defence, and is of serious concern for national security, is the ammunition that cannot be accounted for. This problem brings me to the broader threats posed by the illicit proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs), their related ammunition and other issues. This is what I will now turn my attention to in the next episode, or part two

Introduction and Context

I touched on some of the security issues that emerged from the revelations by the ministers of the Interior and Defence.

To this end, I provided a brief historical background of police recruitment. Next, I offered some conceptual framework, within which I situated my observations about what the revelations mean for (police) legitimacy in particular, and democratic Security Sector Governance and Reform (SSG/R) more generally. I supported my arguments by drawing on recent findings and past examples from Ghana and elsewhere to illustrate and substantiate them.  

In what follows, I attempt to scrutinise what the rest of the revelations around some unaccountable ammunition mean for our national security, but argue from the perspective of the Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS) Convention on Small Armed and Light Weapons (SALW) as well as Ghana’s role as a potential homegrown model for democratic security governance in Africa.   I conclude this piece with some practical and policy suggestions, drawing on my limited experience and modest expertise.

ECOWAS CONVENTION ON SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS (SALW), THEIR AMMUNITION AND OTHER RELATED MATERIALS. 

To understand the seriousness and national embarrassment associated with the revelation of the unaccounted ammunition, a brief history of West Africa’s link to this subject is necessary.  Members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have, since the early 1990s, known that the problem of the illicit proliferation of SALW poses an existential threat to peacebuilding and democracy in West Africa (for further details, see Kwesi Aning's articles on this subject). Moreover, that is why ECOWAS mandates its members to set up their small arms commissions. The reason for this is simultaneously simple and complex. The illicit proliferation of SALW, their ammunition and related material has a devastating effect at the regional, national and sub-national levels. It undermines peaceful elections, conflict prevention, peacebuilding, human rights, gender equality and all of the other cardinal principles of liberal democratic governance. In a region where the states are inextricably connected in several ways, security developments in one state affect the others in ways that make the distinctions between state and regional security more superfluous than real.  

It was because of the seriousness of the problem that ECOWAS first adopted a voluntary moratorium in 1998 to try to address the problem of illicit proliferation before a more concrete and legally binding convention was adopted. This is the ECOWAS CONVENTION ON SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS, THEIR AMMUNITION AND OTHER RELATED MATERIALS. The problem of the illegal proliferation of these weapons became an even more serious problem following the fall of Gaddafi in Libya, and the associated weapons that flooded the region from the unbridled access to them from state stockpiles in Libya. Added to this already concerning milieu are the activities of bandits and jihadists in the Sahel, who trade in these weapons as though they were toy guns. 

As a leading member of the Economic Community of West African States, and a signatory to the ECOWAS CONVENTION ON SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS, THEIR AMMUNITION AND OTHER RELATED MATERIALS, the revelation of what appears as poor stockpile management by the state is embarrassing and at odds with our international credentials. Due to our standing, we always have to demonstrate exceptional stockpile management skills

This is where Ghana, as a leading member of ECOWAS with enviable democratic credentials, needs to set a high standard with regard to her stockpile management. The rising use of such weapons in Ghana, which undermines peace, security and development, means that the state should send a real and symbolic message of its serious intention to deal with the problem of the illicit proliferation of these weapons.

As a member of the team that conducted the first baseline survey of small arms in Ghana, for the Small Arms Commission with funding from UNDP, I speak from the standpoint of one equipped with a modest degree of firsthand experience of the problem.

The illicit proliferation of arms and ammunition emanates from five traditional sources, which are listed in no particular order. These are viz: (1) those smuggled into the country, (2) leakages from state armouries (which were worse during military regimes), (3) leakages from licensed importers, (4) local manufacture and (5) a few smuggled into the country from those who returned from abroad (including from missions).

What this means is that any leakages from the state stockpiles and armouries (no matter how limited, few and far between they may seem) must be prioritised and thoroughly investigated from a national interest perspective that goes beyond party lines. The missing ammunition is antithetical to our admirable credentials and may indicate a far bigger problem of poor stockpile management, which is known to fuel the illicit proliferation of SALW and their related ammunition.  We need to pay urgent attention to this and find a solution. 

What are some of our options going forward? To progress, we first need to recognise that scandals also incubate embryos of hope and solutions. Let me take a moment to explain what I mean by scandal and reform in the penultimate section below. 

Scandals and Reform: Restoring Legitimacy after Scandal(s).

Scandals in the security sector are not new.  For instance, regarding the police, Larry Sherman, a leading police scholar, is convinced that scandals are a defining feature of the police, which may precipitate meaningful reforms. Meaningful reform (meaningful underscored) is not the same as lengthy written inquiries that end up sitting on shelves. A testament to how scandals have led to various reforms includes investigative commissions such as (a) the Knapp Commission Report, 1972 (USA), (b) the Mollen Commission, 1994 (USA), and (c) the Wood Commission, 1997 (Australia). These reports have often revealed and highlighted the underlying complexity of such challenges and ultimately how they undermined the legitimacy of (or, in other words, the trust and confidence in) the sector.

Unsurprisingly, in what has been described by criminologists as ‘the legitimacy turn’, the element of legitimacy in enhancing the criminal justice system in particular and SSR/G in general has been emphasised several times by systematic studies. From the optical prism of ‘Basic Legitimation Expectation’ to Tyler’s procedural justice and Bottom and Tankebe’s Beyond Procedural Justice, a common thread that runs through their (sometimes opposing) concepts is the issue of legitimacy (or, in other words, trust and confidence issues). 

The scandals that we are seeing offer Ghana a unique opportunity to implement meaningful reform because, as stated above, scandals sometimes offer the opportunity for enlightened reforms and/or meaningful transformation. 

Let me start concluding my thoughts on how we can turn this alledge scandle into meaningful reform by offering some steps drawn from my modest experience of working on these issues in Ghana and internationally since 1998; as someone who was part of the team from the African Security Dialogue and Research(ASDR) who once taught on the Security Sector Governance and Management course at the Ghana Armed Forces and Commsnd College (GAFCSC) in the late 2000s; as part of the team who conducted the first baslime survey on small arms in Ghana; as one of the few non blacksmiths who set up the first blacksmiths association in Ghana in 2003; as the first head of research at the National Peace Council, Ghana etc..

Conclusion and recommendations

Before I offer some practical and policy suggestions, let me recap my main ideas articulated above. My primary motive in writing this piece is twofold (essentially). (1) To make a modest contribution towards the often neglected but vital need to demystify security and make it interesting and relevant to the ordinary person, and (2) to achieve this by sharing some thoughts intended to further the conversation about democratic security sector governance and reform, and how, through such meaningful discussions and dialogues, we may gradually raise the security sector to a level that is equal to the best principles/practices. Due to its international credentials, the standard for measuring what is expected of Ghana is high (in my opinion). We not only owe it to ourselves to meet this high standard, but we need to do so, too, for Africa, as an example of homegrown pride. So, the following are some nuggets that I think we could ponder when seeking a resilient, effective response to these two (and other related) problems the Ministers had revealed. 

First, the problems that these revelations expose cannot solely be placed at the doorstep of the security agencies. It is like dealing with a problem in an ecosystem; solutions must be comprehensive and interlocking. These problems/revelations by the two ministers equally stem from poor accountability mechanisms and a lack of robust oversight on the part of those who have been charged to do so. This includes (but is not limited to) the legislature, the bench, the media and other players with various oversight functions in the sector. Then there is the element of corruption. I think that these revelations are also a problem of CORRUPTION (broadly defined, and a leading national security threat to Ghana’s democracy)

Moreover, we need to find novel ways to strengthen the democratic oversight of the sector, including how we can use that to improve the welfare of our officers. In this regard, the old orientation of self-censorship among a wide range of critical players within the sector’s oversight structure has sustained this culture of poor oversight. A result is sometimes what we see: highly undemocratic practices that go unchallenged. An enduring example is the lack of accountability after grotesque military brutalities and abuses against civilians (and occasionally the police) that virtually go unpunished (and sometimes justified by politicians when they are in power) and which are self-perpetuating. 

Although the immediate revelations focus on how Ghana handles the staffing needs of its security sector as well as how it manages its state stockpiles and in turn contributes towards the regional efforts to address the illicit proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) and their related ammunitions and other related materials, the revelations must lead us to investigate more fully the auditing of our state owned armouries’ as well. This should not be opened to everyone. 

The first meaningful step for reform is to have a genuine bipartisan consensus beginning from Parliament. Such an approach should place the nation ahead of partisan interests and loyalties. 

We need to see the problem beyond the limited scope of security and broaden it to include such structural issues as the nature of active partisan politics in Ghana.  Additionally, we need meaningful input from both active and retired securocrates and security officers, and other critical stakeholders from both the formal and informal sectors.

One of my major concerns is that, like other such scandals, there will be a lot of talk and visionary ideas, but such highfaluting plans will have very little or no traction on the ground and, in turn leave us – maybe – worse off than at the start because a change of government will also end up making similar claims/allegations. 

Let me end with a caution. We can have all the fanciful recommendations on paper, but if corruption is NOT  added to the variables, the intended goal will be notoriously elusive. That said, I remain optimistic about Ghana and Africa. It may take time, but we can build a strong continent in the next century, if the Lord tarries. 

Recently, Hutchful, Agykeum, and Kunbour (2021) re-echoed the long-standing observations regarding democratic control of the security sector. 

These authors assert that:

“Beyond the 1992 constitution, the effort to subordinate Ghana’s security sector to democratic control would be underpinned by the emerging international and regional discourse of democratic security sector governance, the basic principle of which held that all public institutions providing public goods and services should (without exception) be held to the same standard of accountability. These standards are equally ­ applicable to the sectors providing security services to the citizens”.

I think they knit together my concluding thoughts excellently, and have nothing significant to add to this comment.

A vital caveat before I leave is necessary. If the allegations by the ministers are not entirely accurate or are unfounded, that too has its national security dimension, not least, a reflection of the continued belief among some that regime security outweighs national security (at any cost). A national security interest must transcend party lines and reinforce national cohesion through inclusivity and shared goals.

Each Ghanaian should be interested in contributing towards a more robust democratic oversight of our security sector, and also offer our officers all the needed support and encouragement.  But I admit that such revelations reinforce the perception that the problems we face as a country (and as a continent)  are both enormous and sometimes discouraging. But I remain optimistic and always encourage myself with this quote from Job 14:7 in the Bible

 “For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease” (KJV).

Email: emmnauel.sowatey@gmail.com