The Ranking Member on the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament, James Agalga, has questioned the government’s commitment to dealing decisively with the Western Togoland secessionist group, Homeland Study Group Foundation.
In an interview with Citi News, James Agalga said he expected more proactive action from the government given the gravity of the situation.
“…given the magnitude of the actions that those bandits undertook this morning, one would expect that they (Security agencies) ought to at least have had some intelligence and taken preemptive steps to abort those actions. The attempted succession by the so-called Western Togoland bandits is not something new.”
“From time to time, they have shown signs that they are capable of fomenting trouble in the Volta Region and parts of the Oti Region. The question is what has the government’s response been,” he asked.
“The government’s response has been knee-jerk and apologetic. I don’t know how they have dealt with the issue so far. At some point, they made some arrests and mounted some prosecution but we don’t know the outcome those prosecutions.”
In its latest attempt to exert their influence, members of the secessionist group in the early hours of Friday, September 25, 2020, blocked major entry points into the Volta Region.
Passengers, travelling to areas in the region including Tefle, Tsopoli and Juapong were left stranded as a result of the development.
Government must act quickly on successionist group
On the same issue, a security analyst, Colonel Festus Aboagye, warned that Ghana may be plunged into a state of insecurity if the activities of the secessionist group are not stopped immediately.
“If we allow the situation to continue as we are seeing, we will get to a place where it will be too late to act.”
“Intelligence must try to be as close to incidence as close as possible. So far as I have tried to suggest, it doesn’t look like our intelligence has been that proactive. So indeed we don’t know what may happen tomorrow,” he said.
