Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin South, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour received a whooping at the hands of a first time MP on live television after he tried to claim the new army chiefs appointed by President Mahama received their appointments not based on merit.
According to him, the new army chiefs received their appointments as a form of reward to being loyal to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Appearing on Good Morning Ghana, Ntim Fordjour speaking about the appointments of new army chiefs stated, “we should not sacrifice meritocracy for political loyalty.”
Member of Parliament for Ketu North, Edem Agbana who was on the show with could not contain his shock hearing the Ranking Member of the Defence Committee in Parliament speaking ill of the new army chiefs.
He described Ntim Fordjour’s claims and false and ridiculous.
“What you are saying is not true and as a ranking on defence, you don’t make such ridiculous claims on a platform like this. I am describing your claim as ridiculous because people have been apppined as military chiefs, and you sit here and say we should not sacrifice metocracy for political loyalty.”
Edem indicated that with such a statement, his collegue MP was ascribing partisanship to the new army chiefs. “That’s a damming comment. What you have done is fundemnetally wrong, and he must apologize for that. His statement is not fair to the security of this nation and he must apolgize for that claim,” Edem swiftly demanded.
“When you make claims that we should not sacrifice meritocracy on the alter of partisan loyalty or politically loyalty, it essentially means that you’re making the argument that the newly appointed army chiefs did not earn theier appointment by merit but by political loyalty. It is such a ridculous and dangerous claim to be coming from you,” he reiterated.
Ntim Forjour had earlier criticized President John Dramani Mahama’s decision to remove the Chief of Defence Staff and all Service Chiefs of the Ghana Armed Forces.
He described the decision as “egoistic and premature.”
Reacting to the changes, Rev. Ntim Fordjour took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his disapproval, stressing that the dismissals affected all 12 senior military officers of Major-General rank and above, most of whom had six more years before retirement.
He warned that this move would place a financial burden on the public purse, as gratuities amounting to millions of cedis would need to be paid.
He also criticized the decision to replace senior generals with Brigadier Generals, arguing that it weakened the military’s command structure.
“Just when Ghana expanded its military might; upgrading key corps such as armour, artillery, signals and 48 Engineers to Brigade status thereby attaining 4-star General status for the Chief of Defence of Staff, Mahama has reset the top hierarchy back to 1-star General as Chief of Defence Staff. This reset is indeed backward, costly and farfetched,” he wrote.
Watch video:
@forsterakubilla #duetwith DE GREAT man tv What a great young man 💪 #ghanatiktokers#fyp#NDC #viralvideo#JM#ndc_music ♬ original sound – DE GREAT MAN TV.
