A security analyst at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Center, Dr. Kwesi Aning, has cautioned that the decision by Ghana to use military and police personnel to get the nomadic Fulani herdsmen out of Asante Akyem Agogo and its surrounding villages should be given a second thought.
In his view, that decision is wrong because “it doesn’t touch with the root cause” of the conflict that has ensued between the Fulani herdsmen and the people of Asante Akyem Agogo.
The natives of the Asante Akyem Agogo have for decades been accusing the nomads of destroying their farmlands with their cattle.
The nomads are also accused of raping women at gun point and killing the locals with the least provocation, especially, when they send their cattle to graze on the farmlands of the indigenes.
The locals have made several appeals to the government to intervene in ejecting the nomads from the area.
The government has in response dispatched a joint military and police taskforce to the area. The taskforce will spend one month where they are expected to eject the nomads from the area.
But Dr. Aning speaking at the ‘Thought Leadership” forum organized by Starr 103.5 FM at the Alisa Hotel in Accra, said such a decision by the government was wide of the mark because it will cause victimhood and exclusion that may form the basis for reprisal attacks on the State.
“When a group of people are made to feel through a combination of exclusion and grievance, they form a potential base for justificatory and response and attacks the State that has let them down”.
“We need to be careful not to encourage an ideology fueled by reality, politics and dispossession. We need to be careful not to create the basis for victimhood and humiliation. We need to listen and listen well”, he noted.
