The Interior Minister in response to the Minority Leader; Haruna Iddrisu’s claim of being scared and alarmed at the state of Bawku when he last visited, has revealed the ministry was also shocked at the disturbances at Bawku.
Hon. Ambrose Dery while addressing parliament, revealed that military and police personnel had already been deployed to Bawku before the chaos escalated.
The Interior ministry since November, 2021 had placed curfew on Bawku and it’s environ following heated chieftaincy disputes that arose. The ministry and other agencies had also placed bans on activities like wearing of smock to atleast minimize the intensity of the disputes. It’s however shocking things escalated after all those implementations.
The minister in his address to parliament therefore stated that, “…the crisis in Bawku all started with ‘simple suspension’, when we did that it was an ordinary deployment until we were shocked by some occurrence which was not easily understood.”
“They did not involve the major stakeholders and in view of the fact that it is near border where you have extremists being close, about 20 kilometres, there is reinforcement. Honourable Minority Leader and if you went there, you would have also seen the heavy armour that has been deployed. We are also conscious of the fact that, that alone is not adequate so we have deployed the peace council to engage the people in the area. The intervention of the Peace Council will also bring down the tension that we saw but we are prepared to make sure that status quo is respected and maintained and that no lawlessness is going to be tolerated,” Ambrose Dery stated in addition.
