Ghana May Not Be A Target But A Launchpad For Terrorist – Security Expert

As the West African Sub region has become a hot bed for terrorist activities, a renowned Security Analyst, Dr. Vladimir Antwi Danso has observed that though Ghana may not yet be on the target list of terrorists, they may use the country as a launch pad to attack others due to its lack of security consciousness.

He therefore bemoans the low level of the security consciousness of the citizens in the country and calls for a concerted effort to raise the level of the security alertness of the people in the wake of terrorist activities within its neighboring countries.

The Security Analyst who was contributing to a discussion on the AM Show on Joy TV with Kojo Yankson, stressed the need for the citizenry to become conscious of their personal, community and national security.

“The people say Ghana is peaceful, Ghana is this and 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 must make conscious efforts to have our people understand,” he observed.

According to Dr. Antwi Danso, even if the terrorist groups decide not to attack the nation, the country could still be used as a Launchpad by these groups to attack others because of weak security alertness of majority of its citizenry.

“Of course, the security agencies would have their role to play where we hazard the threat perception and then begin to build a security kind of defense against that threat horizon. 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 that Ghana is not security conscious,” he said.

He observed that the average Ghanaian has the tendency to leave security matters to the security services alone when they also have an important role to play in the whole security machinery of the state.

Within a spate of a month, there has been several incidences of terrorist attacks along the country’s northern borders with neighboring Burkina Faso, where churches been attacked by some terrorist groups in that country.

Aside that, there has also been some reported cases of attacks from the country’s western neighbors, La Cote d’Ivoire amidst many more reported kidnap cases in the country.