The northern part of Ghana is at risk of attack by terrorist groups putting the whole country at risk, that’s government of Ghana report to the Ecowas Parliament currently sitting in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The report says the recent surge in terrorist activities in the sub-region put the country at greater risk of attack. The activities of violent extremist and terrorist groups in West Africa have been on the rise since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since January 2021, high-profile attacks by groups affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda have been recorded in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Although the Sahel region of West Africa is currently the epicenter of violent extremism and terrorism (VET), the threat is gradually spilling over into the littoral States along the Gulf of Guinea.
Several coastal states along the Gulf of Guinea have recently either witnessed attacks or identified the presence of terrorist groups in parts of their territory.
Leader of the Ghana delegation to the sub-regional parliament Alexander Afenyo Markin said the national security ministry is working around the clock to ensure the safety of the country.
‘although Ghana has not recorded an attack, the recent surge in neighboring countries put Ghana at risk. In the past year the ministry of national security set up its counter terrorism measures to avert any terrorism attack especially in the northern frontier bordering Burkina Faso due to the prevailing security situation in the country and what we have established is that the northern part of Ghana faces the high risk of infiltration’ he said.
Alexander Afenyo Markin who is also the deputy majority leader said the government of Ghana through the national security ministry launched a citizens’ awareness campaign aimed at protecting the country against terrorist attacks.
The campaign, dubbed: “See something, say something”, encourages the public to be vigilant of the activities of suspicious characters and report such activities and characters to the security agencies.
The launch according to him forms part of the ministry’s border counter-terrorism strategy aimed at sensitizing the public to terrorism threats and encouraging the citizenry to collaborate with state security agencies to reduce the threat of terrorism in the country.
He told the Ecowas parliament the terrorism threat in the sub-region had evolved to a point where reliance on only conventional tactics and strategies to combat it was ineffective.
Recent developments, he observed, indicated that the attacks perpetrated in the region and the Sahel had been highly unconventional.
