Former Chief of Defence Staff and National Security Adviser Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah has delivered a blunt warning against military involvement in politics, insisting soldiers are neither trained nor mandated to govern a country.
Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Wednesday (11 February), the retired army chief said he is “vehemently opposed” to the military assuming political power under any circumstances, arguing that such interventions inevitably undermine democracy and national development.
“We have been trained to shoot, to kill, to fight wars — not to run a country,” he said. “The military has no business running government. Our job is to protect the country.”
Nunoo-Mensah, who served twice as Chief of Defence Staff and later as National Security Adviser, said Ghana’s history has shown that soldiers often enter politics with good intentions but end up causing long-term damage.
“No matter how well you start, you will fail because you are doing a job you were never trained to do,” he stressed.
His comments come amid renewed public debate over proposals to rename Kotoka International Airport after a civilian national figure. But the retired general dismissed the controversy as misplaced priorities.
“I don’t care what they name the airport,” he said. “We have far more important problems facing Ghana than arguing about names.”
While acknowledging that airports around the world bear the names of military leaders, he maintained that symbolic changes do little to address real governance challenges.
“There are serious national issues to fix. That’s what leaders should focus on,” he added.
Reflecting on his decades of service, Nunoo-Mensah said he deliberately worked to return the military to professionalism and away from political interference, recalling that he once helped remove the armed forces from governance to restore constitutional order.
“I hate military rule,” he stated. “Soldiers must go back to the barracks and let civilians govern.”
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