The Member of Parliament for Bolga Central and Chairman of the Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, has criticised the country’s failure to learn from past tragedies, following the stampede at El-Wak Stadium during a military recruitment exercise.

The tragic incident, which claimed six lives and left several others critically injured, has raised serious concerns about Ghana’s preparedness for such large-scale events.

Speaking on Joy News' Newsfile programme, Mr. Adongo described the tragedy as a national disaster, but he also used the moment to emphasise what he sees as the government’s broader failure to reflect on and learn from previous mistakes.

“To be honest, what has happened is a national tragedy. Our hearts go out to the bereaved families, and we pray that those who are injured will receive the favour of God for a speedy recovery. But I want to say that as a country, we are not learning,” Mr. Adongo said.

He argued that the country has failed to adopt a critical approach to such events and has not learned valuable lessons from previous incidents.

Mr. Adongo explained that, globally, whenever critical exercises like recruitment take place, there is always a stage where lessons are reviewed and adjustments are made. But, in his view, Ghana has repeatedly ignored this important step.

“We are not learning because everywhere in the world, when you undertake these kinds of critical exercises, there is always a stage where you sit back and reflect. You sit back and evaluate what has happened. And we have been doing recruitment for all these years,” he said.

Mr. Adongo, a strong advocate for greater transparency and accountability, raised concerns about the lack of evaluation mechanisms in the military, an institution widely regarded for its discipline and planning expertise. He expressed surprise that an institution like the military did not already have systems in place to assess and improve recruitment exercises.

“If the military, as one of the best institutions for planning and executing projects, does not have an evaluation mechanism to inform lessons from such events, then I will be surprised,” he added.

The MP stressed that the tragedy at El-Wak Stadium was not an isolated incident but part of a wider issue of poor planning and oversight. He argued that, if lessons had been properly learned over the years, the incident could have been avoided.

“Over the years, if we had been learning and evaluating, we would have noticed that something like this was bound to happen. We have gotten by simply by luck, not because we have done anything right. We are not learning the lessons,” Mr. Adongo emphasised.

He further noted that previous recruitment exercises had seen even larger numbers of applicants, yet did not result in similar tragedies. Mr. Adongo pointed out that, because the country had been lucky in the past, it failed to see the need for improvements.

“Everything shows that the previous numbers were even bigger – I mean, 90,000 across the country. But because we were lucky before, we thought the system was perfect, and we didn’t learn the lessons that could have informed future events. This is a weakness we need to fix, not just in the military, but in every sector where we are working to improve the lives of our people,” he said.

Mr. Adongo called for a shift in mindset, urging the government and institutions to focus on learning from each experience and improving processes moving forward.

“We must have at the back of our minds that at the end of any exercise like this, we need to learn lessons and be better at it next time. And I think that is where we have failed as a country,” Mr. Adongo concluded.