Unemployment fertile ground for violent extremism — Stakeholders
Stakeholders in Wechiau in the Wa West District in the Upper West Region have called on the government to find a solution for the high graduate unemployment in the district to prevent the youth from falling prey to violent extremists or serving as conduit for political vigilantism.
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They said due to the unemployment situation and the erratic rain patterns in the region, the youth were at their wits end and could easily be lured by any extremist group with lucrative offers.
They, therefore, appealed to the government and other stakeholders to be deliberate about creating jobs especially along the border towns to prevent the youth from being lured by money to commit acts that would disturb the peace of the country.
Sensitisation
The people made the appeal at a stakeholders meeting on Community Actions Against Violent Extremism in Ghana (CAAVE) organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) with support from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Australian Embassy.
It was on the theme: “Citizens-Security Forum Against Electoral Violence, Vigilantism and Violent Extremism,” and was aimed at sensitising communities along the borders with neighbouring countries.
Addressing the participants, the Programme Consultant of IDEG, Douglas Quartey, said the threat of violent extremism was becoming very imminent with all the neighbouring countries bordering Ghana suffering one form of attack or the other.
Rationale
He said countries such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire had been affected by violent extremism and in some cases, military coups “and the concern is these activities are spreading down south and Ghana is also at risk.
“So the rationale is to ensure that communities along the border towns are well informed on the threat we are facing,” he said.
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He said it was, therefore, necessary that communities along the border towns were sensitised to the modus operandi of thegroups and how they could prevent the groups from influencing them.