The Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) has raised the alarm concerning the motivation of some recruits into Ghana’s security agencies.

Prof Emmanuel Kwesi Aning said most of these recruits flooding recruitment centres in the hopes of securing jobs into the Service have no love for the jobs they’re applying for, neither do they feel any sense of loyalty to the country they hope to serve.

His comments were in reaction to two young men who had applied to join the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).

According to the duo, John Asante Junior and Eric Obeng Brenya, they hope to become billionaires when enlisted.

They explained that hopefully, “Our salaries as Immigration personnel will help us become billionaires. That is why we applied to join,” the two told state-broadcaster GTV.

Prof. Aning speaking on JoyFM’s Super Morning Show, stated that the motivation of the two young fellows was a recipe for a national disaster.

“If we look at why people went into these services in the 1960s and the 1970s, it was because people loved the service. There was a certain sense of loyalty, there was an honour in wearing the uniform, and people were willing to subject themselves to the discipline and the training.

“You cannot seek employment with Immigrations, and you have the audacity to say on live TV that you want to become a billionaire except if you want to steal. Except if you want to see this state institution as a conduit for extorting money,” he said.

“Now, when such a person seeks to enter a state institution, driven purely by pecuniary interest, then this individual as he or she rises through the ranks will be prepared to sell the secrets of the state and our collective survival to the highest bidder,” he added.

Prof. Aning indicated that the revelation by the duo was the much-needed justification for state security agencies to start revising their recruitment policies to ensure people with this mindset do not slip into the service.

“Should they place this on their agenda? Yes, when do we start the process of recruitment? When do we start making the sift so that we don’t even get people who want to become billionaires?

“Even millionaires will be a criminal thought. Or even the dream of earning hundreds of thousands is unacceptable. But how do we profile these massive numbers? Some will definitely slip through the net,” he said.

However, he was empathetic to the duo and the many young people who had thronged the premises of the El-Wak Stadium, hopeful of passing the first recruitment hurdle.

According to him, it was only instinctive of them to seek employment with the state agency to earn a living considering the dire economic hardship the country is suffering.

“But it sounds to me and from last year when you listen to the video that people made and people were saying that loyalty to the state hardly plays any role.

“It is in the individual’s drive to survive and have a job by all means, and the vision and mission of that job are not important. I want a roof over my head. I mean, it’s very normal; it’s an understandable desire,” he said.

But such desperation, the Professor noted, could lead to undesirable consequences in the future.

“But I think therein lies the potential of some very serious and disturbing things to happen, and I think National Security Secretariat should be preparing the appropriate documents and sending it to the individual institutions represented on the council to place it on the agenda. This is a dangerous development,” he said.