Parliament’s Vice Chairperson of the Defence and Interior Committee, Peter Nanchene Toobu, has described the death of six potential armed forces recruits as unfortunate, saying it was something that could have been prevented.
“What happened this morning is quite unfortunate,” he said on TV3’s News Central on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, following confirmation by the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) that some of its potential recruits died in a stampede.
“This is a preventable incident,” he stressed.
According to the lawmaker, the military should have anticipated the panic associated with people waiting for an exercise for many hours and devised a crowd control mechanism to avert such an occurrence.
He urged the Ghana Armed Forces to do better next time when crowds of this nature are expected at their recruitment.
“When you expect a crowd of this nature, we should probably do better the next time around. If you have a serious crowd like this, crowd control is very important, and you know some of the things that can trigger panic. If you open a gate at once and everybody wants to go in there, people had been there since 9pm the previous day waiting for the gate to be opened, so you expect that these kinds of things will happen,” he stated.
Mr. Toobu further asserted that the screening authority could have applied technology to ascertain the expected numbers and planned adequately, rather than allowing things to go the way they went.
He noted that lessons have not been learnt from the gathering of such crowds, given that previous numbers had not resulted in similar outcomes.
“I think that with technology, we should be able to pull out data from the software. There is a way that you could segregate them and allow some number to report today and others to report tomorrow. These are not things we can’t do. In the past it has happened with all these crowd and nothing happened,” he added.
The incident comes after thousands of young Ghanaians thronged the El-Wak Sports Stadium in a desperate bid to secure enlistment into the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).
The military says the stampede came when some of the applicants breached the protocol put in place for the exercise.
In a statement signed by Veronica Adzo Arhin, Captain, Ghana Navy, Acting Director General of Public Affairs for the Ghana Armed Forces, and issued on Wednesday, November 12, she said some other persons sustained injuries and have been rushed to the hospital for medical care.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the stampede was triggered by an unexpected surge of applicants who breached security protocols and rushed into the gates ahead of scheduled screening at about 0620 hours.
“The unfortunate incident led to the death of 6 potential recruits and many others injured. The injured are currently receiving emergency medical care at the 37 Military Hospital,” the statement contained in some parts.
While the GAF medical teams are working to stabilise the affected individuals, the statement further said “arrangements are being made to notify the families of the deceased.”
Below is the statement issued by the GAF, shared by the Deputy Minister of Defence Minister, Ernest Brogya Genfi, on his socials.
The incident follows an extended recruitment period of one week announced by the Ghana Armed Forces, pushing the October 31, 2025 deadline as a result of technical challenges on the recruitment portal.
In a statement signed by Colonel Evelyn Ntiamoah Asamoah, Acting Director General of Public Relations, the military explained that the extension was necessary to accommodate applicants who had experienced difficulties during the initial phase.
“The Ghana Armed Forces has extended the deadline for the ongoing recruitment exercise by one week due to some technical challenges encountered on the recruitment portal during the initial period,” the statement read.
