One hundred and
twenty-five senior and junior Police officers in the country have undergone
rigorous counter terrorism training in readiness to foil possible terror
attacks in Ghana, New Crusading GUIDE has learnt.
The 10-day training exercise at Boti Falls in the Eastern Region codenamed
BANB?, comes on the back of recent terrorist attacks in neighbouring Burkina
Faso and the sub-region as well as the arrest of two Burkinabes at Hamile in
the Upper West Region.
The officers were taken through various courses with the view to equipping them
adequately to determine and handle all cases of terrorism that may arise in the
country.
They are expected to in turn train other officers in the various regions.
“Terrorism has not yet come, but we have put on our dancing shoes and we are
learning how to dance,” Head of the Counter Terrorism Unit, Chief Superintendent
Raymond Adofiem, said at the end of the training.
He assured Ghanaians and their stakeholders that they were fully prepared to
handle whatever threats that may arise, indicating all they require from the
public is information.
“We cannot defeat this cancer by killing terrorist, we can only kill this
canker by looking at terrorism itself,” he stated, and advised against the use
of violence by persons or groups to solve whatever differences they may have,
either with the state or any other persons.
He said “Let’s discourage violence, let’s not partake in violence despite our
differences”.
The Counter Terrorism boss urged the officers to serve as ambassadors and also
work towards closing the gap that exist between communities, citizens and the
state.
Director for the African Centre for Counter Terrorism Emmanuel Kotin said the
citizenry have a bigger role to play in the fight against terrorism, and
underscored the need for them to provide credible information to the security
agencies to achieve results.
Delivering a lecture on building population-centric security architecture, the
role of civil service, media reportage and police professionalism, he observed
that the capacity training was crucial in combating crime in the 21st century.
He was quick to point out that the training will not do much if the Counter
Terrorism Unit is not retooled in all areas.
“Logistics is a challenge, government investment into retooling the police
should not take a political dimension; security is expensive,” he stated.
Though he admitted Ghana was not under terrorist attack, but “when your
friend’s beard is on fire, you fetch water and put close to your own”.
He commended the government and the security agencies for being proactive.
“Some few months back we raised concerns about this terrorism unit being
dysfunctional, because there were no regional commands” he said, noting the
situation was not changing.
For him, the officers trained should not be deployed back to their former
units, “they should engage them to champion the course and be the trainer of
trainers to their other colleagues.
Meanwhile, he said every police man, in view of their duty of keeping the
internal security of the nation, should have some elementary training “in
detecting and countering terrorism”.
In the view of the security analyst, special terrorism training should be
limited to only the special commands.
“Some few months back, we raised concerns about this terrorism unit being
dysfunctional, because there were no regional commands. We commend the
proactiveness [of government]” he said.