Automatic Military Slots for El Wak Victims’ Families Unconstitutional – Baker-Vormawor

Private legal practitioner, Oliver Baker-Vormawor, has rejected calls for the families of the six young females who died during the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) recruitment exercise at the El Wak Stadium to be given automatic slots in the military, saying the idea is unconstitutional, unsafe for national security, and damaging to the integrity of state institutions.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, November 16, 2025, Baker-Vormawor said he was deeply saddened by the tragedy and had consistently condemned what he described as the “murderous tomfoolery” and negligence of the military command that contributed to the deaths.

He stressed, however, that while the country owes the bereaved families meaningful support, it must not respond in a way that weakens the foundations of state institutions. According to him, military recruitment must be based strictly on competence, training, and the operational needs of the state.

“I want to spend minutes to express why I do believe that giving their families an automatic slot in the Ghana Armed Forces is both wrong security policy and plain unconstitutional.

 Our Constitution is built on the idea that public institutions serve the collective. Recruitment into the Armed Forces is not a memorial gift nor a welfare package. I would assume that recruitment will be guided by competence, training standards, and the operational needs of the Republic.

To convert vacancies in the Armed Forces into compensation slots is to misunderstand what the security services exist for”, he wrote.

Baker-Vormawor added that although many people making the suggestion may be guided by compassion, such a policy could encourage the questionable “protocol” culture often denied publicly but practiced behind the scenes. Extending this to the military, he warned, could create hereditary entitlement within the security services, where one person’s death automatically opens the door for a relative.

Referencing Article 296 of the Constitution, he said that discretionary power must be exercised fairly and without bias. Granting automatic enlistment to a specific group, no matter how heartbreaking their situation, would violate equality before the law.

“Today it is El Wak. Tomorrow it will be any other tragedy, and the Government will find itself allocating enlistment spaces on the basis of emotion, political pressure, or public sympathy rather than merit.

Already, ElWak has brought back the Ghost of the Helicopter families and now one family too now demands slots in the army for a past defence minister.

But beyond the security complications, there is the constitutional concern, that I am bound to alert us to virtue of my constitutional lawyer instincts. Article 296 requires that discretionary power be exercised fairly, reasonably, and without bias.

Creating an automatic path to enlistment for one group of families, no matter how heart-breaking their circumstances, introduces an arbitrary preference that cannot be defended under the principles of equality before the law. Our Constitution asks us to honour all Ghanaian lives equally, not some through special privileges unavailable to others who also suffer loss in service to this country.

There is a deeper danger here. Once recruitment becomes a form of reparations, we risk turning a national tragedy into an administrative distortion. Every slot filled on grounds other than competence reduces the operational integrity of the Forces,” he wrote.

Baker-Vormawor proposed that instead of bending recruitment rules, the government should ensure transparent compensation, psychological support, a full public accounting of what went wrong, and reforms to prevent similar incidents. As a more dignified alternative, he suggested granting the deceased honorary posthumous enlistment and giving them ceremonial honours similar to those offered to Ghana Military Academy cadets.

His comments follow government instructions directing families of the six deceased applicants to submit names of qualified relatives for recruitment. The directive was delivered during a visit to a bereaved family at Eyan Maim in the Central Region by Deputy Defence Minister Ernest Brogya Genfi. He announced that President John Dramani Mahama had suspended the Accra recruitment exercise and ordered that each affected family be given an automatic slot.

“The President has sent us to inform you that the State will stand with the families in the burial and funeral arrangements,” the Minister said. He added that the President wants families to “present a replacement for those people to be absorbed into the military.”

Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, also described the tragedy as heartbreaking and assured that all six victims would receive befitting burials. She noted that the government is covering treatment costs for the injured at the 37 Military Hospital.

A preliminary GAF inquiry revealed that the stampede began when applicants broke security protocol and rushed through the gates ahead of schedule.

The government says its gesture is meant to honour those who died while trying to serve their country, but Baker-Vormawor insists the nation must protect its institutions while providing support.