Ghana’s Sahelian headache: Bawku, the northern marches and national security

Amidst Ghana’s struggle with debt restructuring, the country grapples with the advent of terrorists making inroads into its vulnerable borders. In mid-February 2023, Ghana’s Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul told the country’s parliament that “criminals,” referring to terrorists, tried to blow up a major bridge for the first time in the Bawku municipality, which is tucked away in Ghana’s northeast. The Mole Dagbani are the biggest ethnic group in the district, followed by the Kussasi, Mamprusi, Bissa, and Mossi.

Everyone accepts that the Kusasi community was already present when the Mamprusi founded the town in the 18th century. But the British, in the early 20th century, acknowledged the Mamprusi monarch as the Bawku town’s chief, which caused inter-ethnic conflict. Also, violent fights broke out when the government chose to accept the Kusasi chief over the Mamprusi regent in 1983, and people lost their lives.

Following years of one-party rule, when Ghana’s political system opened up in the 1990s, the local chiefs became more active in partisan politics, which led to the different aggrieved groups aligning with disparate political parties, further stoking the unrest in the region.

However, apart from this divisive issue, the past two years have seen the jihadist attention shift from landlocked countries to coastal states, including Ghana. Policy planners in Accra fear that the involvement of anarchist elements in the long-running conflict between Mamprusi and Kusasi might increase instability and provide jihadists more opportunities to penetrate the West African country.

Numerous assaults in the area in recent weeks have forced thousands of displaced Burkinabe into Ghana. Along with well-established smuggling routes, open borders, and illicit gold mining, Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso is a region that local officials and experts fear is becoming the perfect habitat for jihadists.

Framed from a wider lens, the bane of West Africa’s security, apart from poor economic development, has been poorly administered borders and near absent border control.

A proliferation of arms and radical Islamist fighters traversing borders require as many innovations for security as possible, and as the Nigerian experience with the multinational joint task force to address jihadist threats in the Lake Chad Basin has shown, throwing boots at the problem will not solve it.

Therefore, regional leaders have to be pragmatic, not only about improving the lives of people living in border areas, who are often the first-line recruits for Islamist groups but also enhancing border security.

Download complete report (19 pages)