Editorial: Our Nigerian brothers are troubling us!

Yes, someone must say it! Yesterday the state-owned Daily Graphic reported that an armed robber had been killed in a raid. Two others had escaped and a wounded one arrested. The Graphic wrote: "The suspect, Valentine Ulasi told the police during interrogation that his group was made up of four, two Nigerians including himself and two Ghanaians."

This is not the first time that Nigerians have been named in Ghanaian armed robberies. Indeed they feature more or less as the masterminds.

It is not our intention to push a xenophobic agenda, but we feel we must speak out for the sake of our country's security. Due to the political peace and stability reigning in our country, Ghana has become a preferred destination for many people in our sub-region and beyond.

The ECOWAS freedom of movement protocol is being upheld to the letter by Ghanaians, but sadly, some of the most despicable individuals from the sub-region, especially from Nigeria, are intent on messing up our peace and quiet. A lot of the drug busts and armed robberies in the country feature Nigerians.

That is not a very nice way of treating a hospitable neighbour. We know there is no perfect society and we all have our fair share of social deviants, but the Nigerians should not add to ours.

Though we still support the freedom of movement in our sub-region, we also believe that we cannot have an open-ended immigration regime. We must exercise our right to deny a certain category of immigrant free passage. Terrorism takes many different forms and by God, armed robbers are terrorists and must not be tolerated, ECOWAS or no ECOWAS.

We hope the Ministers of Interior, Foreign Affairs and Security chiefs of the sub-region would treat this growing of armed robbery terrorism with all the seriousness it deserves so as to stamp it out.