Terrorists now very close to Ghana - Vladimir Antwi Danso warns

Dr. Antwi Danso says security apparatus of Ghana must be cautious about nearness of terrorist attacks to Ghana’s borders

We have to build resilience against the spread of terrorism – Security analyst

Ideological or religious motivations needed for terrorism to thrive not currently present in Ghana – Dr Antwi Danso

International Security Analyst, Dr. Vladimir Antwi Danso, has stated that the security apparatus of Ghana has to be very wary because terrorism is getting closer to the borders of the country.

According to him, the West African sub-region alone accounts for nearly 70 percent of terrorist activities in Africa and these activities are happening in countries bordering Ghana.

“(Terrorism) is very close, in fact, the last time the terrorist struck, they were about some few kilometres from the borders of Ghana with Burkina Faso, In fact (Ghana has had) three strikes, one was about 17kms away (from the border), the other was about 67km and the latest one was I think was very close, barely about 5kms and that shows that we should be very careful. We should build some resilience against the down spread of terrorism,” he said in a JoyNews interview monitored by GhanaWeb.

Dr Antwi Danso further explained that the main reason some of Ghana’s neighbours are experiencing activities of jihadists and terrorists is that there is a vacuum of leadership which is exploited by these people.

“The attraction to terrorism has several causes, structural causes and motivational causes. Structural when the country has porous borders, ungoverned places where government is not fair to those places and people use the vacuum to endure themselves to the population and then they give them the motivation through religion or ideology. These are the receptive points where you can see terrorism spreading. And especially when you have known terrorist organisations in the Sahel region,” he said.

Reacting to a report by West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism which said there is an imminent terrorist attack in Ghana, Dr Antwi Danso said that even though the structural issues (such as unemployment and corruption) that translate to terrorism are present in the country it does not imply that there will be terrorism in the country.

He added that for terrorism to thrive, there must be some ideological or religious motivations but these factors are currently not present in Ghana.

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