Terror threat has become so real; there’s a southward drift towards us – Defence Minister

The Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, says the threat of terrorist activities happening in Ghana has become so real over the last few years.

According to him, Ghana faces a real threat from terrorist activities within the West African sub-region considering the southward drift of such activities towards the country.

This follows what has been described as the increasing rate of terror attacks in neighbouring countries with the most recent attack taking place in Togo which claimed several lives.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy News, Mr Nitiwul said the intensity of such attacks closer to the nation’s borders is a matter of worry for him and the government.

“Say 10, 20 years ago, I would not have sat as Defence Minister, and if I was, to think of any terrorist attack. It would not have been in my dictionary even though it would have been a security threat, but it would not be something that I’ll worry so much about.”

“But 6, 7 years ago or 8 years ago, let’s even say 10 years ago, especially from 2012 it has been a real threat to us. I’ll not say imminent but a real threat to us to the extent that if you profile what has been happening, from Mali and you were to take a map and profile to come down you’ll see that there’s a southward drift towards us.”

“It started from Gao area in Mali, and then by 2013, 2014 it has moved downwards into Bamako and it has then entered into Northern Burkina. The threat has become so real that some of the attacks are as close as 5km from Ghana’s border. And it’s not once; it has happened several times very close to our borders,” he said.

He however assured us that long before the terrorists took control of several parts of Burkina Faso, the government of Ghana had already started implementing several measures to prepare the country’s security agencies to defend the country.

“So we did deploy the military to the north of the country in an operation called Operation Conquer Fist, we deployed over 490 soldiers there, liaised with National Security and of course what they call the BNI and the Police and Immigration officers all part of this operation and they have been working there.”

“But we view this as a short term measure, it’s not something that we believe will be there forever, and so we have been doing that. And over the last four or five years, we have done that Operation Conquer Fist. But we thought that it was not enough because we then realized the threat was coming closer and closer to us. It was not when the 5km attack happened that we deployed them.”

“Even before they entered the northern part of Burkina we realized the threat was coming down so we deployed them along our borders to ensure that they’re safe. And a lot of the security exercises were done up north. So the people if they’re listening to me will realize that once in a while the military will come up there and come and do exercises with helicopters, with armoured vehicles, and you get so many soldiers entering the Gbele forest in the Upper West, then they go. Then another time they’ll come, once a year,” he said.