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Ghana is exposed to terrorism threats — Report

Ghana for a long time has remained a stable country in the midst of increasing extremist violence and political instability in West Africa, a report released by the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE) has said.

Terrorism

According to the report, the narrative may no longer remain valid soon if adequate measures are not put in place to tackle the increasing threats from the Sahel.

The threat of terrorism is increasingly descending from the Sahel toward the Coastal States.

Today more than 53% of all ECOWAS states are experiencing insurgencies and the pervasive spillover phenomenon makes Ghana's border regions a key area of concern.

It said "Recent attacks in Benin, Togo, and Ivory Coast highlight the determination of the terrorists to expand beyond landlocked Sahelian countries, where the insurgency has devastated thousands of lives and property in the last decade.

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"Ghana has a big number of prolonged unresolved chieftaincy and ethnic conflicts and tensions, particularly in the Northern regions."

"The inherently high exploitative capacity of extremists implies that these vulnerabilities put Ghana in danger of terrorist exploitation," it added.

"Ghana’s first recorded case was Nazir Alema Nortey3, a young university graduate, who shockingly left the country in august 2015 to join ISIS before sending a message back to his parents to announce his newfound cause.

"He was killed in Syria in April 2016. Professor Kofi Awoonor, a renowned Ghanaian poet and academic, was killed in the West Gate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya when Al Shabab fighters besieged the mall in 2013," the report noted.

Click to read the full report on terrorism in Ghana:

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