At the recent passing-out parade of young officers at the Ghana Military Academy, John Mahama appeared not in civilian dress, but in the full uniform of a Marshal of the Air Force – complete with rows of medals and pilot wings.
The justification offered was constitutional: the President of Ghana is Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.
The logic is tidy. It is also wrong.
This is not a matter of etiquette or taste.
It goes to the heart of how civilian authority over the military is meant to function in a constitutional democracy – and how military honour is preserved.
The Commander-in-Chief role is a legal and civilian one.
It confers authority, not identity.
It exists precisely to maintain civilian supremacy while keeping the armed forces professional, apolitical, and internally governed by their own codes of merit.
Constitutional command does not transform a civilian into a soldier, a sailor, or an airman.
It does not bestow rank, training, or earned distinction.
Uniforms, medals, and wings are not ornamental. In every professional military culture, they are records of service.
They mark time spent in training, operational exposure, discipline under command, and in some cases injury or loss.
Pilot wings, in particular, represent a demanding and dangerous qualification path that few complete.
Medals mark campaigns, acts, or service thresholds.
These are not symbolic props. They are earned artefacts.
Meaning
Wearing them without service collapses their meaning.
The defence offered – that constitutional authority permits such dress – confuses two separate moral systems.
Constitutions allocate power.
Militaries allocate honour.
The first is legal.
The second is ethical.
One cannot substitute for the other without damage.
Civilian leaders command forces; they should not impersonate them.
That distinction matters most at moments of formation.
A passing-out parade is a rite of professional transition.
Young officers are being inducted into a moral order that emphasises hierarchy, earned status, and restraint.
When a civilian political leader appears dressed as the apex military figure – without having passed through that order – the lesson conveyed is ambiguous at best.
For serving officers, the message risks being corrosive.
Military institutions rely on the belief that rank and insignia reflect lived experience and competence.
When those symbols are worn by someone who has not served, that belief is weakened.
For retired personnel and veterans, the effect is sharper.
Many served quietly, without medals, without promotion, without public recognition.
To see unearned decorations displayed at a commissioning parade cannot but feel dismissive.
Political danger
There is also a political danger.
In fragile or post-colonial democracies, the separation between military professionalism and political power is never incidental.
It is cultivated.
When civilian leaders adopt military aesthetics, even briefly, they blur that line.
The act may be intended as symbolic solidarity.
It is read, however, as performative power.
Across democratic systems, restraint has long been the norm.
Civilian leaders attend military ceremonies in civilian dress or in clearly demarcated ceremonial attire that reflects office, not rank.
They salute service by not mimicking it.
This is not humility for its own sake.
It is institutional discipline.
Precedent matters here.
If constitutional command is sufficient to justify wearing a full uniform today, what follows tomorrow?
Which symbols remain protected?
Which distinctions hold?
Once unearned insignia are normalised at the top, the logic trickles down.
Professional boundaries become negotiable.
Argument
Supporters may argue that no formal regulation was breached.
That may be so.
Yet ethical leadership is not defined by what rules permit, but by what institutions require to retain meaning.
Militaries are conservative for a reason.
They trade flexibility for clarity.
Symbols anchor that clarity.
A more serious defence would note Ghana’s history of military intervention in politics and argue that strong civilian identification with the armed forces reassures stability.
Yet history points the other way.
Stability is secured when civilians command firmly but visibly remain civilians.
The strength of civilian supremacy lies in not needing to wear a uniform to assert authority.
There was an obvious alternative.
Attend the parade in civilian or neutral ceremonial dress.
Speak directly to service, duty, and sacrifice.
Leave the uniform to those who have earned it.
Let the moment belong to the officers, not the office.
Respect is shown through distance as much as proximity.
Medals are not transferable.
And constitutional power, however extensive, does not entitle its holder to wear the visible marks of another profession’s sacrifice.
Civil-military relations are sustained by lines that are clear, not lines that are theatrically crossed.
Kofi Amegashie is Senior Lecturer and Researcher at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham.
His research and practice focus on executive education, leadership ethics and the role of mission in higher education strategy.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh