DANGER DRIVE: Cadet Georgina Prepared to Scream for Help When an Officer Drove Her Away Without Consent

What is it like to be the only female among a military intake? For retired Lieutenant Colonel Georgina Mensah, popularly known as “Grandma Soja,” it meant learning very quickly to stand her ground even when faced with a senior officer who ordered her into his vehicle and drove her to an unknown destination.

Speaking to Kafui Dey, Mensah recalled the incident from her early days as a junior cadet at the Ghana Military Academy, where she was the only woman in her intake.

She said the senior officer had instructed her to get into his vehicle after an evening function at the Officers’ Mess.

“I just imagined in my head, I said this man, he doesn’t know the person he’s dealing with. I was a junior cadet, he didn’t know that I had come from abroad, that I was old. I was 30 years,” she recalled.

According to Mensah, she obeyed because he was a senior officer, but became uncomfortable when he started driving without telling her where they were going.

“When we got to the bridge on the Kpeshie, it was then that he was going to ask me where are we going?” she said.

By then, Mensah had already prepared herself to take drastic action if the officer attempted to take her somewhere against her will.

“Meanwhile, I had planned that if this guy took me to any place, to a hotel or any place, I was going to shout rape,” she said.

Mensah eventually confronted the officer and reminded him that although she was a junior cadet, she had not agreed to wherever he was taking her.

“I said, ‘Sir, you and who are going? Where did you ask me before you told me to go and sit down?’” she recalled.

“I obeyed your order because you are an officer and I’m a junior cadet. I don’t know where you are taking me, but wherever you are taking me, it’s not in my agreement.”

She said the officer turned the vehicle around and brought her back.

For Mensah, the incident was another early lesson in navigating military life as the only woman among her peers.

“Nobody slept with me unless I wanted you as a boyfriend,” she said.