Agogo crisis reflects failed confrontational strategy – Kwesi Aning
Security analyst at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Dr. Kwesi Aning, is predicting a possible aggravation of the security crisis in Agogo in the Ashanti Region, soon.
According to Dr. Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, the confrontational approach adopted by the state security over the years has failed to bring the nomadic herdsmen menace under control.
Dr. Aning who is the training center’s Director of Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research said on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday that “the present strategy just reinforces some of the earlier strategies that led to the failure and the radicalisation of the situation.”
The security analyst was contributing to discussions on latest developments in the crisis following the shooting of four security personnel detailed to the area by herdsmen.
The officers, comprising three military men and a police officer, had reportedly received a distress call from a woman who said her farm had been invaded by cattle.
While responding to the call, the herdsmen opened fire on the security personnel.
The critically wounded officers, except the platoon commander, have all been flown to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra where they are receiving medical care.
The Agogo community has been a hotbed of attacks between farmers and herdsmen for nearly a decade. The latest incident has led to the removal the Agogo District Police Commander, ASP Samuel Azagu from his post after he was alleged to be in bed with the herdsmen. A charge he has disputed.
Dr Aning predicts that things are going to get worse.
He said “..the strategies that we are using are confrontational, we don’t seem to want to go to the root of the problem and we don’t want to look at ourselves in the mirror and to say we made a mistake [which] we need to change,” he projected.
He partially blamed the state over its failure fully implement a regulation on the movements of humans and cattle adopted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
“What we are seeing is the failure of the Ghanaian state to fulfill its part of the agreement as an ECOWAS member state relating to transhumance,” he noted.
Dr. Aning challenged the heads of the immigration and passports to “provide data and evidence of the number of cattle that they have rejected at any of our entry points…”
Some persons occupying high positions, he observed, have been profiting from the crisis making it almost impossible to flush out those behind the constant clashes between farmers and herdsmen in the area.
“It is the failure of those who ought to lead and govern to apply the laws of this country that transforms tiny droplets of problems and challenges into a potential mighty ocean that we are seeing now,” Dr. Aning stated.
Source: Myjoyonline
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