By Alex Bossman Baafi

“Refugees To Return” was the caption on the front page of Daily Graphic, Tuesday, May 27, 2010. It was the first time most of the well meaning Ghanaians got to know that we have some of our dear citizens sojourning as refugees in the neigbouring country ,Togo.

Refugees are people who have been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecutions or ntional disaster so wha is really going in this country that has been swept under the carpet by this NDC government. I had a rude shock on hearing the news for the first time.
The government as usual quickly made an ttempt to play its spining propaganda machinery through the Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okujeto Abrakwa to debunk the news that the real figure for the refugees is One thousand and not three thousand five hundred as reported earlier by certain media. The point here is that the numbers are immaterial but the fact is that as every citizen of this country deserves better. Does it have to take the Togolese Authorities to come and inform us about the plight of these unfortunate ones before Ghanaian Authorities know of it and subsequently take action?
This sad state of affair in our national life today speaks volumes about some of the failures of the Miils-Mahama led administration. How can a whole “I Care For You”government, serving as a good ‘sheperd’ and “Father For All” will not know when a sizeable number of the citizens had taken refuge in a neigbouring country as a result of instability. Was the government aware of the instability that erupted following the communal and ethnic clashes in recent past at Bunkpruku-Yunyoo ? How was the sitution handled?
In my opinion, one of the prime motivational reason for electing a government is to ensure the protection of the people no matter who they are, which part of the country they hail from and what it takes. So are we safe? What do we pay the Minister of Interior, the National Security and the various Regional Security Councils operatives for?
The most amazing issue is that the security men deployed to manage the insecurity situation were withdrawn because the nation could not afford pay them GHc 10 per head per day for their up keep. This culminated in the tension and insecurity in the Bunkprugu-Youyoo district reaching its disastrous proportion resulting into the mass exodus into Northern Togo. Was the government not aware of this situation and how did she react to prevent the situation from getting out of hand?
It beats my imagination, if we can afford to spend GHc40 million to celebrate our dead hero, musn’t we equally make it a priority to protect and defend the living citizens of this dear nation of ours at all cost?
The Better Ghana Agenda will continue to be a mirage if care is not taken because such serious lapses in our system make us run in circles as a nation. We must not loose sight of the fact that serious business people want to invest where their toiled and sweated money would be safe.
Even though the Security and political authorities in Ghana and Togo have agreed that appropriate conditions are on the ground for Ghanaians refugees who fled the Northern conflict to Togo to return home, according to the story contained in the quoted newspaper, I think that was not good enough and could be said to be too little too late. This refugee problem should serve as a wake up call for all the sleeping appointees in this government to wake up from their deep slumber to work harder to protect the law abiding and the good people of this country.

In my opinion, the NDC governement should bow down its head in shame for such an irresponsible lackadaisical behaviours towards the handling of certain current national security concerns in the country, including the unacceptable ones from its so called foot soldiers.

With certain NDC faithfuls also causing mayhem here and there with impunity, I personlly feel that we are all not safe under the umbrella unless the president act otherwise.

Email: abkbossman@yahoo.co.uk