Accra, Mar 02, GNA – The National Peace Council, has been deployed to Bawku to engage stakeholders to help bring peace to the Municipality, Mr Ambrose Dery, the Minister of the Interior, has disclosed.
The Minister made this known on the floor of Parliament, in his response to an expression of concern on the security situation in Bakwu by Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader.
Mr Dery reiterated that the intervention of the Peace Council would bring down the tension in the area, adding that the Bawku matter was very crucial to the security of this country.
He said the Government had deployed both military and police personnel, with heavy armoured vehicles to maintain the peace in the area.
He said in view of the fact that Bawku was near a border, where there were reported extremists’ activities about 20km (across the border), the Government had re-enforced the security forces and that heavy armoured vehicles that had been deployed there.
“We are both conscious of the fact that that alone is not adequate, so we have deployed the Peace Council to engage the area and the intervention of the Peace Council will bring down the tension. But we are prepared to make sure that the status quo is respected and maintained, and that no lawlessness is going to be tolerated,” the Minister said.
Mr Iddrisu, who urged the Government not to take the security situation in Bawku lightly, recounted his visits to the Municipality, saying “on two occasions, I was asked you can’t enter here, you can’t pass here, you can’t go here, that is the tip of the things manifesting in Bawku”.
“Excessive arms in wrong hands and citizens are just sitting across, not relating to each other as they used to. I think that the deteriorating security situation in Bawku must receive the necessary attention of the Minister for the Interior and probably National Security.”
GNA