The “Banka Haram,” Of Ghana: A Decade Of Serial Killing

The president of Ghana recently called for a security strategy to counter any possible Boko Haram infiltration into the country. In the wake of an international outcry of Boko Haram's abduction of about 300 Nigerian girls, the president of Ghana 'vowed' to support Nigeria to dismantle the terrorist group. Dismantling the Nigerian Boko Haram is important but not when a dangerous and powerful Banka Haram is haunting Ghanaians at home.

Ghanaians especially bankers have been serially killed over the past 14 years and no government has found it worthy to have a national strategy about it. Serial killing is the worse form of terror because it kills not just people but also the 'soul' of the nation. Men and women of HIGH INTEGRITY who have stood the way of corruption, abuse of power and evil in the country have been the victims of this terror. When integrity, honesty, truth and accountability in a country are threatened by serial execution of men and women who stand by these values and virtues, hope vanishes from such a country. A nation without men of integrity, cannot build let alone maintain strong institutions; the foundations of development and progress.

Today, Ghanaians will most likely think twice before standing up to institutional corruption of any kind. Because the chances that someone will come get them at dawn in their houses are increasing with every serial killing. Why is this not a serious national issue? The killing of a single person for standing up for truth, honesty and accountability can be far worse than the random killing of a thousand.

The failure of our governments (NPP and NDC) to take the issue of serial killing serious should be a worry to every Ghanaian. The serial killers care not the party to which a person belongs. The silence of our governments over this serous issue raises more questions than answers. A review of the history of events linked to this and a look at the operations of the National Security system can shed some light.

Run up to the 2000 general elections, the nation was gripped with fears of serial killing of mostly women. However, soon after the elections, such killings stopped without any known investigation. The theories on this were that women were killed or dead bodies were dumped by the NPP to make the then governing party unpopular. Whether this is true or not, it made the idea of a national serial killing possible, perhaps, for the first time.

Events leading up to, during and after the implementation of redenomination of Ghana's cedi, set the stage for the current serial killing in Ghana. The first high-profile killing was the Deputy Director of Operations at GCB, who allegedly swore that any policy other than the perforation of old cedi notes returned in exchange for new notes would happen only over his dead body. Head of Security at the BoG was next and many others till date. No matter who was and still behind these killings, the fact is that it happened under the watch of the NPP government. Since the NDC took power in 2009, a number of similar killings continue to happen including the high-profile killing of an NPP constituency Chairman of Dome-Kwabenya. Why would both the NPP and NDC not take the serial killing serious? Are they complicit in this?

State intelligence institutions such as the BNI and the National Security ought to be leading any search for solutions to the problem of serial killing, but the dark and covert nature of their operations especially the NS make these institutions themselves questionable. We have a national security system that is so covert that no one seems to understand its operations and a little is known about who, when, why and how it hires its staff. Only the government of the day and officials of the national intelligence agencies seem to know what they are doing.

This strategic national expertise can therefore fall for government or externally sponsored evil covert operations. A National Security Officer is currently been held for alleged murder of the NPP chairman (Graphic Online, 14/01/2014). If found guilty at the end, what would this mean for the NS? Could this mean he was acting within or outside the framework of the NS system and for whom?

A cursory look at the profile of most past NS operatives tends to suggest that people with history of thug life and crime are most likely candidates for recruitment into the NS. Without a national code of conduct for post-security operatives, such individuals are let loose after being trained by the NS when governments change.

One wonders also whether there are any professional standards in the NS at all. How on earth would a National Security institution operates in the dark, as was the case of dawn operations in Legon? Why can't the NS use court orders and operate in open daylight? Whom are they hiding from and what then differentiates a National Security Operative demolishing an illegal tollbooth at Legon and a serial killer gunning down a bank officer in Tema, all at dawn?

It is time now for Ghanaians to call on the government to tackle the issue of serial killing with all the seriousness it deserves. The first steps should be to ensure openness and transparency in the National Intelligence and Security systems by setting transparent recruitment procedures, opening up the operations of the systems more and setting up code of ethics and behaviours for active and out-of-service NS operatives.

The National Security has been shrouded in darkness for far too long. Can the constitutional review be useful here? An expert team needs to be set up by the government to investigate all cases of serial killing in the country for the past 14 years to identify the root causes of the issue and find lasting solutions.

By the way, where was the BNI in the Suweiba-KATH Saga?

A DEMOCRACY With FEAR, is WORSE than a DICTATORSHIP

H.S. Wumpini
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