President Nana Akufo-Addo has announced the deployment of additional resources to Ghana’s border with Burkina Faso in order to prevent the country from becoming a battleground for terrorist activities.
He also announced the formation of a “standby force” to fight the insurgencies.
According to President Akufo-Addo, only a strong collaboration between citizens and security agencies can help defeat insurgents who have prioritised Ghana as the next target for attacks, hence the move.
“But even within our limited means, the standby force is being created. The various nations that I’ve mentioned are able to also give us some robust capacity to meet the terrorists. That is the major security preoccupation for all of us along the coasts.
“It is better for us to spend limited amount of money we have now defending ourselves against the penetration rather than allowing it to take foot and then, of course, you’re involved in the huge expenditures and huge damage to the population and to the economy, etc,” he explained.
The President made this comment while addressing a visiting United States of America Congress Committee on Foreign Relations visiting some African countries.
President Akufo-Addo also identified the source of the terrorist influx into the West African region.
According to him, after the death of Gadaffi, the terrorists “crossed the Sahara and found refuge in the northern parts of Mali that’s over many 10 years ago, and since then, they’ve been systematically waging a war in Mali which is now spread across the entire Sahara –Niger, Burkina Faso, and is now also come southwards.”
The President noted that there have been “terrorist outrages in Togo which is our Eastern neighbour, we’ve had terrorist outrages in Cote d’Ivoire and could give one which is our Western nation, and Burkina Faso, which is our northern neighbour is now almost the epicentre, apart from Mali, the jihadist resurrection in West Africa so the issue of security is primarily for us with everything.”