Foreign/Local Militants Already In Bawku?

Foreign/Local Militants Already In Bawku? What is happening in the northern part of Ghana and how safe is the nation as tension rises in this part of the country?

There is obviously a strategy common to Militants across the world being displayed in Bawku. Terrorist From the Boko haram group in Nigeria, ISIL and Al-Qaeda, and even lone-wolf terrorists in U.S and Europe, all have a modus operandi similar to the latest conflict ongoing in Bawku.

Foreign/Local Militants Already In Bawku?

First is the shooting to kill security officers mentality being displayed by the participants in the Bawku conflict. Ghanaians only know about arm robbers who have the audacity to kill state security officers and not community members of a conflict zone.

Secondly, the actual shooting and killing of a police officer who was not even stationed and known in the town. What was the basis or circumstances that led to the shoot to kill of the police officer who only went to the town for a visit? I hope the state security apparatus is not just handling the motive of the killing of one of their own like they are perceived to handle ordinary citizens’ cases.

The clearest signal of the presence of radicalized people who could create a bigger national security problem is the aiming, shooting, and wounding of our revered military men. Three solid of them. What could be the motivation, purpose of ordinary citizens, who the same military went to protect, aimed and shot at them possibly to kill them but ended up wounding them?

Ghanaians know for a fact Ghana’s military men do not accept any act of suppressing or attacking any of their members. Ghanaians know, our military would always return with force, no matter how minimal, to ‘discipline’ any individual or group of people for any act of attack on their members even when the individual military person(s) is wrong.

Established terrorist groups, like Boko haram, ISIL, and Al-Qaeda, attack state security officers because the security officers are a symbol of the state and the state’s authority and power. For terrorist groups in their early stages, they attack the same security officers just to provoke the state to unleash the state security on innocent citizens to wound, maim and kill some, for the real Militants to use it as propaganda to recruit more fighters including the locals while portraying themselves as the good guys fighting the oppressor. It is the same methodologies being adopted in neighboring Burkina Faso in recent months prompting dozens of Burkina Faso refugees into Ghanaian territories.

READ: Understanding The Ghanaian System 101: By Uncle Ebo Whyte

It is therefore not a coincidence that three military men will be shot and wounded within months of killing a police officer in the same community, knowing the philosophy of Ghanaian soldiers that they would always return.