ISIS could take advantage of Ghana’s lax security consciousness to set up in the country – Security Analyst

Security Analyst Dr Vladimir Antwi Danso has suggested that the country risks being taken advantage of by extremist groups including ISIS, due to the poor security consciousness displayed by the citizenry, ABC News Ghana can report.

Dr Vladimir Antwi Danso asserts that the general ‘lax’ approach towards security matters by Ghanaians because of the widely held perception that Ghanaians are peaceful people puts the country in a highly vulnerable situation.

He explains that even if churches, mosques, schools and other public institutions are not targeted by these extremist groups, there is the likelihood that they may take advantage of the poor security consciousness of Ghanaians to set up a platform in the country from where they will launch their activities.

“Isis may not attack Ghana, they may not come and blow our churches or whatever it is but they can use Ghana as a platform for launching any other thing that they want knowing very well Ghana is not security conscious,” the Dean of Academic Affairs at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra observed.

The security situation has become a very topical issue after the country experienced a series of activities that called into question the level of safety of Ghanaians.

There have been several reports of kidnappings, particularly the kidnapping of 3 Takoradi girls, the impounding of guns at the ports and more recently, the arrest of more than 300 Burkinabes in the Sissala East District of the Upper West Region. They had fled the ISIS attacks which had resulted in the killing of a Catholic Priest and some Christians at a Church in their country.

The leaders of the Christian community in Ghana held a recent meeting to discuss ways of improving security in Churches to forestall any attacks following the incident in Burkina Faso.

Government has also pledged to equip the security agencies to ensure they are ready for any invasion by extremist groups and maintain the peace enjoyed by the country is sustained.

However, the Security Analyst is worried about the tendency of Ghanaians to leave security issues to only the security agencies relieving themselves of any responsibility to look out for red flags.

He is of the view that Ghanaians should be well-educated on the need to take their personal, community and national security matters serious.

“Ghanaians are not security conscious. Ghana is peaceful we say, Ghana is this Ghana is that and then they leave the security situation to the so-called security agencies alone. We need to be security conscious; personal security, community security, national security. These are the three levels that we need to make conscious effort for our people to understand because the security agencies will have their roles to play where we hazard a threat perception and begin to build a security kind of defense against that threat horizon” Dr Vladimir Antwi Danso explained in an interview monitored by ABC News Ghana.