I, ABUGRI A. HARUNA, a concern citizen of Bawku, Ghana, strongly condemn any calls by agnostic persons for military takeover in our beloved town. I believe that, if the Government of Ghana succumb to such calls and any possible actions thereof, it would lead to further instability, violence, and pinching suffering of the entire citizenry in Bawku. This would eventually open wider doors for insecurity and possible breeding of terrorists in the Kusaug region. Government would have succeeded in pushing out the unemployed youth to seek solace with terrorist cells in neighbouring Burkina Faso and Togo. The entire rights of the people would be either abused or completely usurped.
I am responding to these calls with grief because, many of these self-styled security analysts, through their previous comments, pushed us to Asantehene mediation table as the only way to bringing finality to the Bawku crisis. What has suddenly changed? These confused, double-sided and disoriented analysts are, perhaps, merely seeking for common popularity and attention.
I am writing this to the expose the subtle agenda behind their calls – especially the hidden maneuverings of the Mamprusi faction, who are using influential figures to manipulate national sentiments and psyche in their favour.
Exposing the Agenda: Why the Military Takeover and a State of Emergency in Bawku Is a Dangerous, Self-Serving Proposal
The recent calls by Mr. Emmanuel Kotin, a so-call security analysts and the Executive Director, Africa Centre for Security and Counterterrorism, Mr. Kofi Bentil, Vice President and policy analyst for IMANI Ghana, and their cohorts – for a military takeover and declaration of a state of emergency in Bawku and Binduri must be strongly condemned by all well-meaning Ghanaians.
These suggestions are not only shallow, disingenuous and dangerous, but also laced with subtle, well-crafted agenda that seek to undermine the ongoing peace efforts, particularly the Asantehene-led mediation process, which threatens to expose historical falsehoods and bring fairness and finality to a long-contested matter.
This group of like-minded security analysts can only plunge a country into total chaos. They fundamentally lack the grasps of the Bawku crisis and the real security issues thereof. I see them as pampered boys struggling to project themselves as being best-selling.
I am compelled to briefly unmask what is happening here after listening to their credulous tirades.
The Hidden Hand Behind the Curtain
The Mamprusi faction, well aware that the facts of history, chieftaincy succession, and community demographics do not favour their claim to the Bawku skin, have shifted tactics. The ultimate aim is to recolonize Kusaas and dominate them again. Unable to win through traditional mediation or previous legal processes, they are now resorting to what they know best: manipulating national security narratives whilst unleashing gunfire all across Bawku and the entire Kusaas’ settlements, most especially in Binduri.
These nefarious schemes are to provoke military intervention. They then start using proxy voices and political flirts – such as fake analysts, pseudo-security experts (like mentioned above), and discredited political influencers, to make wild, vile, and fear-mongering suggestions that the only way to restore peace is through force and suspension of civil liberties.
This is a calculated move to derail the Asantehene-led peace process, which is steadily and courageously peeling back the layers of distortion that have sustained this conflict for decades.
Otherwise how could a Lawyer like Kofi Bentil go to lengths by further suggesting that the Government of Ghana should de-gazette all Chiefs in the area and hold the town for some time? This is the highest level naivety and innateness from a lawyer.
For the education of ignoramus person like Kofi Bentil, I wish to say that there is only one gazetted Paramount Chief in Bawku in the Kusaug traditional area, by name Zugraan, Naba Asigir Azoka Abugrago II, who has been on the skin for forty one years. He is the overlord of the Kusaug Kingdom, member of the National House of Chiefs, member of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs, and once the president of the Upper East Regional House of chiefs.
My question to Kofi Bentil is: who else, as a gazetted Paramount Chief should qualify to be de-gazetted. You see when persons like Kofi Bentil are out for malicious mischief and flagitious crime, they lose their faculties!
The Asantehene’s credibility, neutrality, I apologize for the truncation. Here is the rest of the letter:
and deep cultural authority are exactly why the Mamprusi faction fears his involvement. They know that truth and justice, when allowed to rise, will not favour their narrative. The Mamprusis know that the Asantehene would allow them to colonize Kusaas using primordial reasons to do so in this twenty-first century. Hence, their new strategy: paint Bawku as a war zone, push for a military-led solution through their chosen unlettered favourites, and silence the Kusasi people’s legitimate history and rights under the guise of “peace and order.”
Military Takeover: A Cover for Ethnic Domination
The shallow-minded, loud wailing, lazy, armchair analysts who are feverishly seen servicing their paymasters by propagating the devil’s seed should not be fooled into believing that Ghanaians and the Government would take to their chicanery. Ghanaians and the ruling class cannot be fooled to believe them. No wonder Kotin and Kofi Bentil peccable maneuverings with the immediate past government deepened the Bawku crisis by installing a rival chief in Nalerigu and exporting him to Bawku to rule the indigenous Kusaas.
A state of emergency is not about peace – it is about control of Kusaug, it’s people, its culture and its natural resources. It is about total shutdown of human rights. It is about stripping the Kusasi off their civic space, dissolving local authority, and reengineering the narrative under the barrel of the gun.
This is not just a Kusasi-Mamprusi matter anymore. It is now a test of Ghana’s democracy – whether brute force and hidden agenda can triumph over truth and justice. We must remind ourselves that Bawku has seen more than its fair share of military presence over the years. What has it produced? More deaths, more trauma, and deeper ethnic polarization.
The solution to Bawku’s crisis is not soldiers on the streets, but truth and justice on the table.
A Warning to the Nation
Ghana and its citizens must open their eyes to machinations through hollow analyst. These calls for military intervention are not neutral and genuine. They are ethno-political strategies masquerading as national security solutions. We must reject them before they set a dangerous precedent for other ethnic and chieftaincy disputes in Ghana.
We cannot allow Mamprusis after sensing a possible humiliating defeat at a fair Otumfour mediation process, which was proposed by them, and now running to cloak themselves in national security propaganda. That is not how democracy works. That is not how peace for warring factions is built.
The Way Forward
The government of Ghana must double down on supporting the Asantehene’s mediation efforts, but not abandon it and only talk about it when someone is dead in the conflict area. We must empower dialogue, not dismantle it when it is maturing. We must protect the rights and dignity of the people of Bawku, Binduri and Kusaug as a whole, not hand our fate to the whims of military commanders.
Let it be known: the people of Kusaug and Bawku deserve peace, but not peace imposed by force. They deserve peace grounded on justice, history, and respect for traditional authority.
Let us not as Ghanaians, reward those who seek to, consciously or unconsciously, disrupt peace processes with military occupation of Bawku and Kusaug. Let us call out the nebulous agenda set by the Mamprusis and their frontrunners for what it is, and protect the integrity of our democracy and the soul of the nation.
The deliberately fashioned out draconian curfew slapped on the people of Binduri is only meant to cripple Kusaug economically and unjustifiably punish us. The good, law-abiding people of Binduri are perplexed that government has fallen for the mamprusi antigovernment tricks. No comment! We shall talk soon.
It must be noted that, not all security analysts should be given audience in any reputable television and radio stations. Clueless security analysts like Emmanuel Kotin and Kofi Bentil should be blacklisted. Proffering solutions to security situations in a country is not for feeble minds, nor for mere security certificate-wielding propagandists. Individuals with natural wisdom and refined, unbiased facts should always be reached out to talk sanely on critical issues. Security is a delicate issue! It makes or unmakes a nation. Choose correctly who handles it.
Written and signed by:
Abugri A. Haruna
Binduri, UE/R.
Source: Abugri A. Haruna
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