Ghanaian soldiers should absolutely go to Nigeria. I have read about people expressing fears that attacks will follow our soldiers to Ghana if we go to Nigeria. Considering that when Nigerians leave Nigeria, and often their first stop is Ghana, there is nothing to say that attacks won’t come to Ghana whether we go or not. I do pray they don’t com and that Ghana stays peaceful. Whether or not, this is not a fight to make one person or another president of a country. This is a fight to help Nigerians live in peace and to help protect innocent people. It is as noble as any fight will ever be. We must absolutely go help Nigeria.

We are not going to Nigeria to call people names. God knows there are enough people calling others terrorists and all kinds of names. I hope our President will stay away from that. Our task will be to help Nigerians live peacefully not to call people names.

Helping Nigerians live peacefully means we are not going there to fight just to fight. We are going there to help stop attacks by force if we must. We are not going there to pursue anyone’s enemy. For instance if we get to Nigeria and all kidnapping and all bombings and other attacks have stopped and we carry out patrols for a period of time and people can get around without fear and so on, our job is done and we can come back home. We are not going there to seek people who have broken laws. That will be the job of Nigerian police and the Nigerian military if their President chooses to use their military to do law enforcement duties.

If Ghana pursues this route, I hope our leaders will assume that attacks will follow us back to Ghana and will prepare for them. Our immigration officers should be trained to be extra vigilant. We must create “Border Wardens” to patrol remote areas if we don’t already have them. We must have extra police force to patrol critical areas including our schools and villages and report unusual observations quickly. It just happens that; unfortunate though it may be; we have many people seeking employment. We must have quick response forces across the country to respond quickly to emergencies and have a rapid follow up force. Lastly if there is ever an attack on our country, our government must not hesitate to call on other African countries to come help us with our patrol of the country until we can arrest the problem.

We are Africans. I believe that we all have one destiny whether we realize it or not. We should not tolerate killing each other. It is unfortunate that it happens, but this should be the beginning of a concerted effort to work together to ensure that we will live in peace from now on. ECOWAS and the AU have failed to impress so far, I hope this will give them a chance to roll up their sleeves and do something for a change.

Tony Pobee-Mensah

tpmensahr@yahoo.com