Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur has charged the country’s security agencies to clamp down on religious extremism among other vices that threaten the security of the state.

Ghana appears to have become a fount of recruits for religious extremists after a graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Mohammed Nazir Nortei Alema, reportedly joined terrorist group Islamic State (IS).

He sent a WhatsApp message to his senior brother on August 16, informing his family of joining IS, whose stock-in-trade has been the beheading of enemies.

Speaking at a security conference in Accra on Wednesday, August 26, Vice President Amissah-Arthur said all hands must be on deck in the fight against terrorism.

“[There is] arms proliferation in our region, we have communal conflicts sometimes that spread across our borders, the religious extremists who are recruiting fighters to their side so that they can impose their world view on us…we need to work against all these forces of disharmony.”

Delegates at the conference are to identify weaknesses in existing policies on security to support peacekeeping operations and fight terrorism.