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The national co-ordinator of the National Boundary Commission, Major General Emmanuel Kotia, has warned that threats of terrorist attacks from the Sahel are real and must not be underplayed.

Speaking to Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin on Wednesday (11 May 2022), Major General Kotia said, “The terrorist attack from the Sahel on the northern territories of Ghana is real and we all know of the effect of terrorist action in Burkina Faso.

“Now, we have also seen in a couple of years up to last year, where we have had attacks in the northern part of Côte d’Ivoire, Bénin, and yesterday was the second attack in Togo.

“So, it is real and we have to take all precautions that are available to prevent any terrorist attack, and to also prevent any downward movement of the terrorists into the coastal states of the sub-region, especially Ghana, Benin, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire,” Kotia said.

Earlier, Ghana’s Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, said that at least 840 terrorist attacks were recorded in West Africa in the first quarter of this year, resulting in 2,482 casualties.

Speaking at an extraordinary meeting of the ECOWAS committee of chiefs of defence staff in Accra on Thursday (5 May 2022), Nitiwul decribed the as development worrying.

“As you are well aware, the activities of violent extremist organisations, terrorist armed groups and transnational organised criminal networks have increased in the sub-region, despite the current national and regional efforts to combat the trend,” Nitiwul said.

“The sub-region is saddled with complex transnational crimes committed both in the physical and cyber domains. Terrorists’ activities have assumed cross-border dimensions with far-reaching implications for civil societies, regional security and global peace and development,” the minister said.

“Indeed, by the end of the first quarter of this year (2022( alone, 840 attacks have already resulted in 2,482 casualties.”