'Thank you for your service to the nation' - Brig Gen Dan Frimpong (Rtd) writes
On the last day of his “Kokrokoo” programme on Peace FM on Tuesday, 23 December 2025, ace broadcaster Kwami Sefa Kayi (KSK) thanked the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) with the following words. “Thank you for your service to the nation.” He added, “it is because of you that we can sleep in peace at night.”
Having acknowledged his bias for GAF on account of being a “soldier-pikin/barracks brat,” he also acknowledged the important roles of the Ghana Police and other Security services, thanking each of them. Put another way, he thanked us for our service “for God and country!”
This acknowledgement of GAF, though not the first time by Kwami, touched a raw nerve. It reminded me of our mutual friend, former Chair of the National Media Commission, who departed to eternity in May 2025, Nana Kwasi Gyan Apenteng, whose beef with the military was that we do not tell our own story.
Consequently, we allow people who are either totally ignorant or, at best, have very little knowledge about the military, propagate ignorance/falsehood confidently/emotionally about the military, based on the misconduct of a few young soldiers exhibiting youthful exuberance in town. Some even argue vehemently that Ghana does not need the military as the Police is adequate for our security!
Nana constantly reminded me of Chinua Achebe’s quote: “Until the lions have their own historian, the tales of hunting will always favour the hunter!”
Others
In other jurisdictions I have operated in, the military is a highly respected organisation, probably because citizens are more educated and more patriotic, and understand the dangerous role of the soldier. As a former Commanding Officer (CO) of mine once aptly put it in the 1980s, it is the only organisation where one leaves home vertically (alive) in the morning, and returns horizontally (dead) in the evening. This is based on the oath we swear to go wherever directed by the Commander-in-Chief by land, air, or sea, even at the peril of our lives, for the good of the nation.
Indeed, as Ghana’s Lt Gen Erskine, the first Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and the first African to command a UN Force, constantly told us in our operational area in Lebanon that the military represents the sovereignty of a nation, and is the last bastion of defence. Once the military is destroyed internally, the nation is destroyed, as the Lebanon example showed us. I guess Gen Erskine wept in his grave when he saw the villagers of Ahafo-Hwediem humiliate members of NAIMOS.
Elsewhere, the reprisal would have been swift and a permanent deterrent. In 2017, when then Capt Mahama was murdered by villagers of Denkyira-Obuasi, a colleague of the country I was then working in asked, “Dan, is that wicked village still on the map of Ghana?” He then showed me a map of his country of villages which had been “un-existed” for killing soldiers! The question was, “if you kill your own soldiers, who will defend you in the event of a war with a neighbouring country?”
US Example
An early observation I made in the US traveling by air was that, at every airport, boarding before any flight started with First Class and the Military passengers, serving and retired. On my first experience, I introduced myself as a General from Ghana, and not the US. I was pleasantly surprised when I was very courteously told, “Thank you, Sir, for your service to your nation and the world!”
In my own country, I had never been complimented that way in the over 30 years of service I had at the time, 2003. Is it the Biblical case of a prophet not being appreciated in his own country? At the time I joined the military in the early 1970s, the Denkyira-Obuasi/Ahafo-Hwediem-style attack on the military was unthinkable and suicidal.
Is it the GenZ-syndrome where young adults always complain their parents never understand them and therefore must have their own way, or that we, their parents, have failed them?
Discussion
Ghana has been touted as a beacon of democracy in Africa, but the idea of human rights appears, in the view of many, to have been overemphasised at the expense of good behavior and sometimes common sense. Whatever it is, a country cannot survive on disrespect, uncouthness, rudeness, with no ethical considerations, operating like money is the sole determinant of what is proper for the general public good, rather than ethics as espoused by the C17th Political Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, for a decent society.
As 2025 ends, in addition to the issues mentioned above, including Ahafo-Hwediem villagers attacking/removing the ignition of a NAIMOS vehicle, “galamsey” appears to be in full swing despite the repeal of LI 2462 with certain areas deep in the forest reserves described as “no-go-areas” for the Police!
The Pra, Ankobra, Birim, and Offin rivers are now all muddy sludges full of cyanide, arsenic, lead, and mercury (CALM), ironically, meandering their way to the sea. For the few who have questioned galamsey as an “existential threat” to Ghana based on their reduction of galamsey discussions to just an academic exercise, one hopes time has educated/or will educate them as we struggle with water/hard metals in our food chain, and the horrendous medical problems resulting. More importantly, one hopes galamsey is not a lost cause/case as many unfortunately describe it. The old saying “desperate situations demand desperate remedies” is still valid.
To veteran broadcaster Kwami Sefa Kayi, thank you for thanking the Ghana Armed Forces and other security services for service to the nation. To all readers who encourage me to continue writing as my widow’s mite to national development, thank you.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (2026!) God bless us all!
Leadership, lead by Example/integrity! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya and Council Chairman, Family Health University, Accra
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