Govt must strategically disarm Bawku to end violence

Member of Parliament for Garu, Dr. Thomas Winsum Anabah, has called on the government to implement targeted and intelligence-led strategies to disarm residents of Bawku to curb the persistent violence in the area.

His concerns come in the wake of rising insecurity in parts of the country. Public discourse has linked these incidents, including the fatal shooting of two students from Nalerigu Senior High School, to a spillover of the Bawku conflict.

In an exclusive interview on Channel One Newsroom on Monday, July 28, Dr. Anabah stressed that disarming the population must be a central focus of the government’s intervention.

According to him, even military personnel deployed to the area are stunned by the calibre of weapons being used, with some reportedly encountering arms they had never seen before.

He called on the government to move beyond surface-level interventions and adopt intelligence-driven operations involving neutral and credible actors.

“We need to enforce security there; ransacking, searching, confiscating weapons and dealing with those who are possessing weapons. That way, everyone will become disarmed. If it is left with clubs and knives, that one is different.

“But with these sophisticated weapons that you hear, the military even reports to us that they wield weapons that some of them have not even seen before.

“It raises the question of how they got it in and who is facilitating it. That is why some of us believe that the whole of Bawku has become an enterprise for those who deal in those things. It is up to the government to use serious intelligence, very neutral people who love peace, to really research into the issue and use intelligence to get all those who are backing some of these things to bring an end to it,” he stated.