A Member of the Defense and Interior Committee of parliament and MP for Wa West, Peter Toobu has called for concerted efforts at consolidating the works within the national security apparatus.

He has suggested a coordinated and centralized approach to gathering and sharing of national intelligence.

Speaking on Class FM’s news analysis programme, 505, on Monday, 9 May 2022, on the back of the West Africa Centre for Counter Extremism’s (WACCE) 2022 Report which is cautioning Ghana to be weary of likely insurgency and terrorism spill, Mr Toobu said: “It seems that we are beginning to have a messed up system where everyone is an intelligence officer, and everyone is a combat officer, [but] in that area, we need to refine our strategy and let national security be a serious matter for people who can coordinate it”.

He intimated that the country must ensure and invest in community policing if it wants to continue to enjoy peace.

According to him, this will prevent radicalisation and create a synergy between the youth and the police.

He described a synergy between the youth and the Police as a serious intelligence gathering tool that will make citizens can feel part of the police force.

“If Ghana wants to enjoy the peace that we are looking at in a region that is very turbulent, then let’s go back and do what we call community policing.  It’s a community strategy that can prevent radicalisation, it is a strategy that can put the civilian population and the police together in order to create synergy to understand what security means, it is the way to go,” he said.

The WACCE report, titled “The Threat of Violent Extremism to Coastal States, Ghana’s Exposure to Violent Extremism”, highlighted that Ghana’s proximity to Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo, and Ivory Coast, which have been targets to recent attacks, exposes the country to extremist recruitment and similar attacks.

The center also pointed to the over 300 unresolved chieftaincy conflicts in the country including the Bawku chieftaincy conflict, the ethnic tensions in Northern Ghana and the secessionist demands of Western Togoland separatists, among others as factors that amplify these risks.