The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) will deploy over 6,000 troops to complement other sister security agencies to ensure peace and order during this year’s elections.

Some logistics of the Ghana Navy and the Ghana Air Force would also be deployed.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Godwin Azera of the Lands Operations Unit of the GAF made this known at a day’s training for selected media persons at the Burma Camp in Accra yesterday.

The GAF personnel will form part of the 67,974 national security task force to be in charge of security on Election Day.

The deployment, he explained, would be effected from December 4 to December 15, this year.

Should there be a run-off, he said, the operation would be extended and rounded off on January 10, next year.

“The GAF will deploy over 6,000 troops from December 4, 2020 and withdraw them on December 15, 2020, if there is no run-off. However, if there is a run-off, withdrawal will be on January 10, 2021,” he added.

Media training

Speaking about the role of the GAF during this year’s elections, Lt Col Azera said the roles of the troops would be to form rapid response teams and also serve as part of standby forces who would patrol polling centres, collation centres and troubled spots.

Presently, he said, a series of training and engagements for particular stakeholders, including the media and political parties, were taking place in other parts of the country, as well as the institution of measures to ensure the success of the elections.

Information security

In a presentation on the topic: “Introduction to information security”, Major Michael Naah of the Department of Defence Intelligence, GAF, stressed the significance of information security and said it was paramount to the conduct of this year’s elections.

“Security varies among the people and so security is a state of mind, which is the sense of being secure, and so journalists’ appreciation of security as they go about their work during the period of elections is very important,” he said.

GAF ranks

For his part, the Director of Public Relations at the GAF, Col Eric Aggrey-Quashie, expressed grave concern over the consistent mistaken reportage on ranks by media persons and urged the media to make a conscious effort to get the subject at their fingertips.

He took time to educate the participants on the ranks of the GAF, from junior ranks to commissioned officers, and said both officers and soliders were very particular about their ranks, since it took a lot of factors, such as basic fitness tests, medical examination, among others, to be promoted.