Kperisi, (UW/R), Feb. 26, GNA – The Upper West Regional Police Command has appealed to community members to keep surveillance and endeavour to report abnormal behaviours of strangers who come into their communities.
The Command noted that the recent terrorists’ activities in the West Africa sub-region had put pressure on the police and urged the community members to support them to ward off terrorist threats and secure peace for the country.
The Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Mr Peter Ndekugri Anombugri, who made the appeal at a symposium organised for students at the Wa Nursing Training College, said for the past years, citizens had always conceived that matters of security were in the domain of the police alone.
He explained that in modern security, citizens must not act as onlookers but be seen effectively participating and complementing the efforts of the police through surveillance, and volunteering information promptly and at the appropriate time.
“We need the cooperation of all citizens in the country and the people in the Upper West Region could not be left out in that regard. If you see something abnormal, say something about it,” he said.
The Regional Commander, therefore, charged people in the communities to take individual security matters seriously and also, “avoid keeping strangers in their houses without investigating to find out who they are and their motives in the community.”
DCOP Mr Anombugri told the students that the recent terrorist attacks in schools in Nigeria showed that students in educational training institutions were more vulnerable when terrorists strike.
He advised the students to be vigilant at all times and report the activities of suspected criminals to the school authorities and the Police to help secure peace for them to study.
The Regional Commander pleaded with the student nurses to “have passion for the nursing profession and also show passion and patriotism to secure peace for the country always.”
Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed, the Upper West Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), advised the students to be security conscious to ensure that the school environment was conducive for teaching and learning.
“You must work collectively to secure security for yourselves as well as protect peace that the people in the region were enjoying.
“Don’t allow opportunists to use you and foment insecurity for your school, the region and the country at large,” he cautioned.
Mr Kojo V. Titto, Secretary to the Commission, asked the students to form civic education clubs in the schools to help seek experts counselling on terrorist threats and other aspects of the nursing profession.
The symposium was under the “Preventing Electoral Violence and Providing Security to the Northern Border Regions of Ghana” (NORPREVSEC) project.
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), in collaboration with other stakeholders, especially the National Security and the Ghana Police Service under the sponsorship of the European Union (EU) organised the symposium.
Its main objective is to help prevent pre and post-electoral violence, better equip key government and nongovernmental state actors in their joint and coordinated efforts to sustain peace and contain the rise of violent extremism.
GNA