Opare Writes: Buduburam Insecurity – A National Security Time Bomb!

On 26^th November 2020 when the president on his central region campaign trail visited Gomoa Buduburam (Liberia Camp) the appeal of the Chief of the town Nana Kojo Essel to the president were only two and these were made succinctly by the Chief to the commander in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The appeal made by the chief were; one the vehicular traffic situation and two the insecurity in the community, ordinarily when a president on a campaign trail visit a community most chiefs uses such occasions to request or appeal for schools, hospitals, community centre’s, water, electricity etc. rarely do chiefs report security issues and for that matter appeal for redress of insecurity in their communities.

For the Chief to forgone the request for social amenity stuffs and appeal for redress of insecurity in his town goes a long way to tell us that the place is very insecure.

The passionate appeal of the chief to the president with regards to the gross insecurity in Buduburam popularly refer to as Liberia Camp was something that didn’t come as a surprise to me and most Ghanaians because of the intelligence, information and experience some of us have had and heard about the place.

Insecurity in Buduburam:
Liberia Camp has become a sprouting and an infectious ground for criminals and also a settlement for crime engineering. Hard core criminals who are able to escape arrest and jail sentence for perpetuating crime in other part of the country and even within the ECOWAS sub region seeks refuge in the community, as a result turning the community into a crime estate.

The thriving environment of Buduburam for criminals has also made the place a training grounds or an apprenticeship centre for learning or acquiring skills in crime to become professional criminals in society.

Innocent people whom find themselves in Liberia Camp by virtue of destiny, coincidence or accident end up relinquishing their bright future aspirations to pursue knowledge and skills in crime because of how enticing, lucrative and ubiquitous crime has become in this community.

The insecurity narrative about this community is nasty and un-Ghanaian, all activities that the 1992 constitution of our motherland interprets, describes and deem as crime goes on there and goes on unchallenged by our state security apparatus something that makes it troubling.

From organized crime, cybercrime, mobile money fraud, drug peddling, prostitutions, armed robbery, homosexual prostitution, rape, gangsterism, vehicle theft, land guards etc., in fact Liberia camp has become a community for inventing new crimes and its methodologies.

Crime are not only perpetuated by these felons, but they also retail and wholesale criminals for crime activities, one can go to Liberia camp and hire a criminal at a fee to execute crime for him or her.

Regardless of the day, time and location, Innocent people who dwell and commutes in Buduburam are likely to experience some form of crime – from Vehicle theft, weapon – point robbery, scam, physical torture, rape, land guards attack, theft and among others, the least or minor crime in Liberia Camp is “gang torturing”.

By virtue of the ubiquitousness of criminals and crime in Liberia Camp which makes the place minacious, one is unable to enjoy Ghana’s constitutional provision of “freedom of movement “which guarantees us the right to move freely in Ghana.

Unfortunately for us as a country, Buduburam produces the finest criminals who are able to accomplish any crime task in any part of the country and within the ECOWAS sub region. People who can afford the services of these criminals pays money to gang leaders or the proxies of these gangsters, and once agreement is reach the leadership of the contacted gang deploys his team to execute the particular crime agreed on and paid for.

It breaks my heart trying to give in-depth narrative about insecurity matters in Liberia Camp because it is not only a national security issue but it embarrasses our dear country.

The Police has clearly loss the fight against criminals and crime in Buduburam, insecurity in Liberia Camp has defeated the purpose of State/National Security, the palpable nature of crime and its effects in Buduburam makes the various crime combatting operations (operation calm life, police visibility, community patrols, snap checks, high way patrols, swat operations etc.) by the Ghana Police a mere rhetoric.

The local Police officers in the town are wantonly disrespected in the full glare of the public, their commands and orders to enforce law to check crime are also thwarted, as a result rendering them to become toothless dogs.

As a security and intelligence wit, the delicate nature of security and intelligence issues makes it uncomfortable for me to go on with what I intended writing since it has the tendency to even expose more loopholes in the security of the town.

I wish I conclude this write up by suggesting the way forward or solutions for addressing the matter, but doing so will give these criminals enough information to counter any future combatting strategy that our state Security institutions might introduce.

The joint police and military swoop operations in the town for criminals which appears to be the major combatting strategy of our State Security in addressing the issue has woefully failed and hence needs an urgent review.

In concluding, I once gain deem it as a national obligation to appeal to our security institutions to come out with a comprehensive counter-crime approach to combat this menacing insecurity problems in Gomoa Buduburam, because at is stands these criminals outmatches the Police in terms of their modus operandi of their crime approach and that of the police crime combatting approach.

The president should use the successful fighting of crime in Liberia Camp to measure the performance of his security chiefs not only for appointing them but for also resourcing these security institutions.

It is shameful that will allow a town in Ghana to become a synonym for insecurity.

Safety First!
Ernest D. Opare
Security & Intelligence Wit.
Cyber Intelligence and Security Aid Bureau.