Government urged to mitigate plight of border communities

The Head of Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Professor Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, has urged the government to put measures in place to mitigate the plight of people living in border communities following the continuous closure of the country’s borders.

He said before the closure of the borders, there should have been some study to ascertain its impact on the communities and what could be done to address them, in line with proactive intelligence.

Prof. Aning, who said he was not sure if such analyses were carried out in the case of the country, added: "If that was not done, then it is a failure because people's livelihoods and lives are on the line."

New Year School

He was speaking at a panel discussion on: “COVID-19 and global peace and security” at the 2022 Annual New Year School and Conference organised by the School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education of the University of Ghana in Accra yesterday.

The 73rd edition of the conference is on the theme: "COVID-19 and socioeconomic dynamics in Ghana”.
Participants included representatives from academia, the private sector, state agencies and youth groups.

Prof. Aning said the COVID-19 pandemic also came with some security challenges, which included the spread of violence, adding that the prevalence of the virus was turning the world into a volatile situation.

He said so far about 5,000 acts of violence had been recorded globally following the disruption of economies due to the pandemic.

“We are seeing increased frustration, typically along border communities, that will jeopardise citizens’ cooperation with the statutory security forces and affect timely intelligence to the security agencies,” he added.

He, however, commended Ghana's decision to deploy security forces to support community compliance with the COVID-19 protocol, while keeping the nation's borders safe.

Prof. Aning said the joint operations by the security agencies helped in foiling border security breaches and also sent a signal of their preparedness to counter-terrorism, transnational crimes, illegal resource extractions, drug trafficking, smuggling, illicit arms trade, among others.

According to him, so far, the security operatives had arrested some 150 suspected terrorists in their various operations, adding: “Ghana took a highly securitised approach in the  management of its COVID-19 control and this manifested in the implementation of extraordinary measures, including enacting emergency laws and putting in place institutional mechanisms to enforce these rules.”

He said those measures had also brought to the fore concerns about human right violations, the excessive use of force, among others.