WANEP: Involve Fulanis in Agogo security plan

The West African Network for Peace building, WANEP, has criticised newly announced measures by the Ashanti Regional Security Council to deal with the feud between Fulani herdsmen in Agogo and residents there.

As part of the measures, military and police personnel have been deployed to the Agogo area to help deal with the menace, but the Executive Director of WANEP, Chukwuemeka Eze, told Class News the measures are temporary and not the best.

“I think this is ad hoc; it is temporary because at the end of the day, we cannot continue to keep all these people there forever. What is important is that once there is some level of sanity in terms of the peace in the area, we need to engage more constructively.”

He suggested the Fulanis be drafted into security arrangements for the area.

“My opinion is that if we make the herdsmen become part of the provision of security in the area and guarantee them that if they don’t constitute a nuisance to the community, they would be assured movement of their cattle, I think that will be the compromise,” he suggested.

There have been clashes between the residents of Agogo and Fulani herdsmen leading to the death of at least 25 locals and an unknown number of Fulanis.

The youth have warned citizens of Agogo not to render any kind of services, such as selling of food items, farming implements, tools and transport services to the Fulani. They warned that anyone, who does so shall be considered “an enemy of Agogo” and be treated as such.

Ashanti Regional Minister Peter Anarfi Mensah told journalists at a press conference Wednesday February 3 that about 20 soldiers and 40 police officers have been deployed to Agogo to drive the nomadic herdsmen out of the area, following allegations of murders, rapes, robberies, and trampling of farmlands of locals by their stray cattle, levelled against them.