Recruitment stampede: former MP Freda Prempeh urges enlistment of injured applicants into GAF

Dr Freda Prempeh, a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Tano North Constituency is urging the Defence Ministry to compensate applicants who were injured in the Accra recruitment stampede by enlisting them into the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed 28 casualties, 12 critical cases, five in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and six deaths in the stampede which happened at the Elwak Sport Stadium Wednesday November
12, 2025.

Describing the stampede as unfortunate, Dr Prempeh, also a former minister of state, expressed her sympathies to the bereaved families of the deceased.

“This has never happened before and we are hoping that it will never happen again”, the former outspoken legislator told journalists at Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Ahafo Region, noting that the entire enlistment process remained scary.

“Normally applicants are sent with text messages, and those messages should come with special numbers so that lets say if you have about 5,000 applicants in Accra, we don’t bring them altogether for screening”, she suggested.

Dr Prempeh said: “If the applicants are divided into numbers and made to appear on different days, that will help”, and further urged the GAF to handle the applicants with care.

On the way forward, the Dr Freda Prempeh, says the nation requires more factories and industries to advance its industrialization for job creation, poverty reduction and progressive development.

She said: “If we have more of those factories built by Dr Kwame Nkrumah functioning now, it can absorb the chunk of these young people running for jobs and employment opportunities”.

Dr Prempeh noted that employable skills training and advancement in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) remained pre-requisite for job creation.

She said the government ought to invest much and make TVET and employable skills training more attractive as “our thump print”, calling for more investment into agriculture, tourism and hospitality
and industrialization.

Dr Prempeh said: “Now everything is TVET from clothing, building and even food to furniture”, and urged the employed young people to develop interest and pursue TVET courses to fetch jobs for themselves.

The MP however, expressed her sympathies to the bereaved families of those applicants who lost their lives in the stampede and wished the injured speedy recovery.

Dr Prempeh noted that the number of applicants were many and due to that the ministry ought to re-think and provide applicants with special numbers to the center for screening.

By Dennis Peprah