President Nana Akufo-Addo has revealed that a total of 757 Soldiers have been deployed to Ghana’s borders to assist personnel of the Immigration Service in eastern, western, and northern borders to avert illegal entry amidst COVID -19.
According to the president, these deployments are not in any way intended to intimidate or prevent eligible Ghanaians from registering to vote in December but they are there for their express purpose, which is to guard our borders.
Addressing the Nation ahead of Registration of Eligible Voters for December Presidential and Parliamentary elections, the president said That is the limit of their remit, and they will not be permitted to stray beyond that remit.
Nana Akufo-Addo said In total, two hundred and seven (207) soldiers have been deployed along the borders of the Upper East Region; one hundred and ten soldiers (110) in the Northern Region; one hundred and two (102) in the North East Region; ninety-eight (98) in the Volta Region; seventy-two (72) in the Oti Region; sixty-nine (69) in Upper West; sixty-four (64) in Bono Region; twenty-one (21) in Savannah Region; and fourteen (14) in the Western Region.
He said” The longstanding deployment of security personnel, especially the military, along our borders is another dimension of this process of guaranteeing the peace of the nation. Fellow Ghanaians, it is no secret that our neighbor to the north, Burkina Faso, has, in recent times, been at the receiving end of several terrorist attacks, as has another neighbor, Cote d’Ivoire. To shore up our borders against such attacks, and to defend our nation’s territorial integrity, the Armed Forces, at least since I came into office, have been very proactive in engaging in operations to secure our borders and foil any potential terror attacks on our soil. Operations such as ‘Conquered Fist’ and ‘Koudangou’ have been going along for some time, since 21st February 2019, to meet this objective. Deployments of soldiers in areas along our borders have been regular, and residents living in border towns will bear testimony to this.”
“Again, in the fight against COVID-19, I took the decision, on Saturday, 21st March, to close all our borders by land, air, and sea. To ensure substantial compliance with this directive, and to assist personnel of the Immigration Service, our eastern, western and northern borders were shored up by some personnel from the military. This development, for example, during the period of the three-week lockdown of Accra, Tema, Kasoa, and Kumasi, led to the arrest of some five thousand (5,000) persons along our borders, who had entered our country illegally. Indeed, the first six (6) recorded cases of COVID-19 in the Volta Region, for example, were those of West African nationals, who entered the country illegally.”
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
