Fighting The Public, Not The Fires

 

At a time when we should be commenting on critical national issues that would ensure good governance, we have been compelled to take a look at a crude and uncivilised conduct by firefighters as it unfolded at Kasoa last Monday.

Ghana joined hands to condemn the antiquated brutality meted out on a lone journalist by some personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS).

It was an imbecilic act of shame when persons who responded to an emergency call to save lives and properties turned out to rather, as it were, become rogues whose actions could have killed instead of save the persons they are remunerated by the state to protect.

Ghana has put that outmoded baggage of uniformed personnel attacking their compatriots outside the regimented order behind her back. The last time such brutish conduct took place was in Tamale when a student of the Tamale Technical University was assaulted by a policeman during a students’ demonstration.

In any case, firefighters are not known to behave like hounds or hogs as they did at Kasoa.

If the misconduct of the first responders at the fire scene disheartened Ghanaians, the response from the Public Relations (PR) Unit of the GNFS did worst bereft of wisdom. Whoever crafted the response did so without an idea of how to manage image crisis.

Claiming that the defaulting personnel were assaulting a thief opens the GNFS for further public opprobrium. Must a suspected thief be hit on the head with protective helmets the way the viral video showed on social media? Was that how the defaulters were trained at the Fire Training School? Is that nonsense part of firefighting drill? And the PR Unit put out that ‘crap’ of a response without the Chief Fire Officer reading it before letting out on the public domain?

It is instructive that even before assaulting the poor Class FM reporter, the firefighters had already been engaged in an altercation with some persons around the fire scene. It just shows that a bunch of undisciplined firefighters were deployed to the fire scene, leaving us to deal with the rotten outcome.

We find it amazing that after defending the action of the personnel, the GNFS turns round to tell us that they are investigating the misconduct.

There was nothing wrong with videoing the misconduct of the defaulters by the reporter, which incensed the first responders. If the misconduct is acceptable, why were the defaulters scared of the public having a look at what transpired anyway.

Let us not allow a situation where when firefighters respond to an emergency they turn their hoses and helmets on victims and others as tools of assault rather than tools for putting fires and saving lives and properties.

While we do not have confidence in the outcome of the enquiry being conducted by management of the GNFS, we nonetheless demand that an apology be rendered to Ghanaians even before the report is released.

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