A member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Communications Team, Wonder Madilo, has expressed deep concern over the tragic loss of lives during the recent military recruitment exercise at the El-Wak Sports Stadium, linking the incident to Ghana’s worsening unemployment crisis and poor planning by state institutions.
Madilo said the tragic scenes at El-Wak reflected broader systemic failures in the country’s recruitment and job creation systems.
“On this recruitment business, we have been losing lives—not always just around the recruitment itself,” he stated on the AM Show on JoyNews, monitored by MyNewsGh.
“Even when they are enlisted and go for training, we hear about incidents here and there. But this one is of much more concern, and it raises the issue of the high level of unemployment in our country.”
He noted that the desperation displayed by thousands of young Ghanaians who turned up at El-Wak was symptomatic of a much deeper national problem.
According to him, the long intervals between recruitment exercises only fuel anxiety among jobseekers who see enlistment as one of the few remaining routes to financial stability.
Madilo added that the government’s failure to plan and decentralize recruitment worsened the tragedy.
“Year after year, we see the same thing. Yesterday’s numbers were terrible,” he said, describing the chaotic scenes where applicants were left under the scorching sun without adequate shade or crowd management. “Some people were even climbing and scaling walls.”
