Col Aboagye (rtd) on how govt should be dealing with Western Togoland separatists

As state security forces scratch their heads for a lasting solution to the issue of the Western Togoland secessionists, a security expert, Col Festus Aboagye, has suggested the use of education.

Col Aboagye wants the government to launch a massive education on how the former German administered Western Togoland became part of Ghana before they spring a surprise on the nation.

The security analyst, who is with the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre, told The Chronicle Newspaper in an interview that the Ministry of Information and National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) could both be at the forefront of this education drive to enable the average Ghanaian to be abreast with the development of that time.

The retired military officer, with rich experience in conflict management, said it is dangerous for the state to be firefighting after the illegal activities of the group escalate.

Firefighting, according to him, is not the best conflict management approach.

According to him, the United Nations (UN) was specific in the 1956 Plebiscite on whether German Togoland would join then Gold Coast to become independent Ghana, but the so-called separatists continue to feed the system with a particular understanding, which is gradually gaining currency with the vulnerable younger generation.

If the government seems to be carrying the ‘fight’ to them, their supposed support base will abandon such an unattractive enterprise.

He went on to tell the newspaper that in the early sixties and seventies when the agitation sprung up, the respective regimes dealt with it with precision before gaining taproots to grow.

He suggested, among others, the need for Ghana to provide the requisite documents from London to buttress the point of the government, instead of demanding such documents from the secessionist group, which are not forthcoming, yet the security of that part of the country is being threatened.

A few years ago, the group, Homeland Study Group, led by Papavi Kumordzi, began agitations for separation from Ghana, since, according to them, the UN decision for the Plebiscite of 1956 was for a union, to which government disagrees.

Their activities of the separatists, mainly in the Volta Region, were outlawed but have gone underground from where they occasionally emerge to announce their existence.

On November 16, 2019, the leader of the group, Papavi, declared the separation of Western Togoland from Ghana and fled to an unknown destination.

Incidentally, the declaration was done just outside the fence wall of the Police Training Depot in Ho.

The police, The Chronicle gathered, were deceived into thinking that the occasion was a funeral celebration.

Early this year, the military descended on a supposed training camp of the separatist group somewhere beyond Dzodze in the Volta Region. The trainees, including a female, claimed that they were tricked about being recruited into the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

On March 5, this year, whilst all was set for Independence Day anniversary the following day in Kumasi, a flag, suspected to be that of Western Togoland, surfaced at the Volta Regional Coordinating Council office in Ho, but the police quickly brought it down.

In the morning of Thursday, September 3, 2020, the separatists knocked on the gates of the capital, Accra, when two signages linked to the group were found erected at the boundary of the Eastern and Greater Accra regions at Akorle near Somanya and Akuse.

As usual, the respective local police commands were swift in bringing down these signposts which bore the inscription, ‘Welcome to Western Togoland’ and ‘You are leaving Western Togoland. Stay Safe!’

With less than 50 kilometres to the capital, the understanding is that the group can spring a surprise in any form if the state continues to underestimate its capabilities.