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A former army officer, Captain Nkrabea Effah Darteh has cautioned against making light of reports of the alleged plot to destabilize the country.

According to him, it will not take much sophistication to destabilize a country.

“I will not take any security issue as a joke at all because history shows that most great upheavals were almost as a joke,” he said on Eyewitness News on Wednesday.

Captain Rtd. Effah Darteh said his experience of coups in Ghana resulted in the loss of lives and chaos, adding that it must never occur again.

“Because of what I saw, all the major coups that happened in this country and the mayhem, loss of lives, and brutalities that was meted to civilians, I pray that our democratic dispensation should continue, so I don’t have pity or mercy, I don’t have time at all for anybody who is dreaming of a military coup,” he remarked.

Many Ghanaians are challenging the government’s claim that three key persons had been arrested for masterminding an attempt to take over the reins of state.

Some have said that the ammunition and weapons found with the accused persons did not appear to be sophisticated enough to warrant the belief that the arrested persons indeed wanted to take over the government.

But Captain Rtd. Nkrabea Effah-Darteh wants Ghanaians to treat the report with seriousness.

Don’t trivialize coup attempt

Meanwhile, the government has cautioned the general public to desist from trivializing the alleged plot to destabilize the country.

“It is unfortunate that sections of the Ghanaian public will attempt to ridicule this information. Look at the assassination of the former President of the United States of America John F. Kennedy. He took a bullet and just one person with a gun was arrested.”

“The culprit did not do it with tanks or missiles or weapons of mass destruction but security experts came to the conclusion that there was clear and present danger and went ahead to arrest this person. If something like this happened, then I think that the attempt from some quarters to ridicule this is rather unfortunate and should not be encouraged,” Deputy Information Minister, Pius Hadzide said during a press briefing.

Three persons are currently standing trial over alleged instability threat.