Retired security analyst and former military officer, Col Festus Aboagye, has urged the government to significantly boost investment in intelligence gathering and surveillance technologies to tackle the persistent conflict in Bawku.
Speaking on The Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, July 30, 2025, Col Aboagye emphasized the need for a combined strategy involving human intelligence and advanced surveillance tools to identify and neutralise key actors sustaining the violence.
“I strongly suggest that the government needs to invest more in intelligence resources to address the Bawku conflict,” he stated.
He described the current instability as the result of “spoilers”—individuals or groups who actively sabotage peace efforts and thrive in the prevailing insecurity.
“Both the security intelligence operatives and the technologies that the government has must be brought to bear on the Bawku conflict. These elements that we call spoilers will do anything and everything to ensure that the peace is not realised.”
Col Aboagye further revealed that national security agencies are already aware of several individuals believed to be behind the unrest, including financiers, warlords, and influential community figures.
“We know the warlords, and I believe that National Security knows certain individuals who are behind the Bawku crisis, either as financiers or opinion leaders. You get to target those people using technology and human intelligence to neutralise their platforms.”
However, he cautioned that such targeted operations must be carried out with care to minimise collateral damage, warning that mistaken identity or flawed intelligence could result in the wrong people being harmed, such as students or bystanders.
“Mind you, in the process, there could be collateral damage — like someone entering a senior high school and abducting two students, who sadly turn out not to be even Kusasi or Mamprusi.”
His remarks come in the wake of the government’s recent military escalation in Bawku, where the Ghana Armed Forces have transitioned from peacekeeping to peace enforcement, following the deployment of an additional 400 troops amid heightened tensions and increased violence.
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