Adam Bona, Security and safety analyst
Ghana cannot be classified as a country in a “state of insecurity”, security analyst Adam Bonaa has said.
He explained to Eugene Bawelle on Class91.3FM’s current affairs programme ‘The Watchdog’ on Saturday, 19 June 2021, during a discussion on the recent bullion van heist at James Town, Accra, which led to the death of a young police officer and a street hawker that: “When you say, ‘Ghana is in a state of insecurity, I’ll say ‘no, we are not in a state of insecurity; we have security challenges”.
“So, let’s separate the two”, he noted.
Clarifying his comment, Mr Bonaa said: “When you want to look at a country that is in a state of insecurity, you look at Libya, you want to look at Somalia, you want to look at Burkina Faso”.
“We haven’t gotten there yet. We might never get there”, he noted.
“So, we need to be careful with the choice of words because when you say ‘state of insecurity’, I drove from my home to a location and to this place. I didn’t have anybody throwing stones at me or my car”.
Today, he went on, “some banks are operating; when you go there, you’ll be able to get your money”.
“ATMs are working. People are taking their money and all that”, he added.
Shedding more light on what a country in a state of insecurity looks like, Mr Bonaa said: “You get to a state of lawlessness when the situation has degenerated”.
“For instance, Nigeria found itself in a state of insecurity recently with the EndSARS movement when there was massive looting”.
“Even the US; the #BlackLivesMatter protests”, he cited to buttress his point.
According to him, a country is deemed to be in a state of insecurity when the “security officers fold their arms and watch people do that and that then we say we are in a state of insecurity but at the moment, we have serious security challenges where bandits hit you and they run”.
Just a few days ago, the Minister for the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, said Ghana is so safe that the citizens of other countries are running to Accra for refuge.
Speaking on the recent rise in crime, Mr Ambrose Dery said: “What we should know is that the criminals continue to change the modules and we have to be changing with them and the police is doing all it can”, adding: “We have not lost control”.
“I always want to emphasise that we need to go to neighbouring countries to see what is happening there but we are not in the same league with them,” he said.
“We want to do better than we are doing now but believe me, Ghana is safe; that is why all the other countries are running to Ghana”, he told journalists.
However, the Ranking Member on the Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament, Mr James Agalga, told the media that: “Four more years for Nana has begun with a rise in crime”.
“Ghanaians no longer feel safe compared to our immediate past”, he claimed.
“Violent crime-related cases, particularly robbery, are shaking the foundations of our nation, and it is only fair and a duty for us to call on the Nana Akufo-Addo administration to up its game”, he said.
“We are calling on the President, Chairman of the Security Council, Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, to ensure the peace and security in a country that has remained an oasis of peace in a troubled region is not compromised.”