Brigadier General (Retd) Nunoo Mensah, former Chief of Defence Staff, has rubbished a ban imposed on him and six others from security installations. He was livid about the government’s action and told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, “Banning me, to me, is a useless exercise.” “I will sit in my house here and know all that is happening at Burma Camp. I don’t have to move out of my house, I have got enough intelligence things to know what is going on there. “So if you ban me, you are wasting your time. The only way they can ban me is to stitch my mouth that I can’t talk.” He and the six former service commanders have been banned from all military and police installations and garrisons in the interest of National Security. They others are: Lt Gen. Arnold Quainoo, Former General Officer Commanding, Real Admiral Owusu Ansah, former Chief of Naval Staff, C.K. Dewornu, former Inspector General of Police, F.Y. Asare, Former Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, Bruce Konuah, former Defence Advisor to Pakistan, and W.K Aboah former Commissioner of Police. Nunoo Mensah also accused the government of lacking discretion on matters bothering on national security. “I have never, never been of any threat to our country. I have been a threat when I speak in the national interest, because there are things in Ghana which are against Ghana’s interest…In fact, if you are a clever chap, I am a good source of intelligence for you…If you are using your intelligence properly, I am somebody you should be talking to and not ban.” Brigadier General Mensah stated emphatically that the ban would not deter him from speaking his mind on issues that bother on national security and of national importance and pledged his full commitment to Ghana’s democracy. “I have never, never fancied any military putsch; I didn’t go to the army to overthrow governments.” He explained, “I went to the army to defend Ghana.” Even though he claimed he has not been informed officially about the ban, he justified the meeting he and the others had with former President Jerry John Rawlings. The Brigadier General accused the New Patriotic Party of being ungrateful to him, and noted that he was pestered by the party whiles in opposition to help them take power from the National Democratic Congress, but was not considered then as a threat. Story by Isaac Essel