The Programmes Director at the Institute for Peace and Governance (IPEG), Justin Bayor has asked government to ramp up its intelligence gathering capability, which is key to reporting the miscreants involved in the Western Togoland happenings, so as to prevent the secessionist group from reaching its projected evolvement.
His call comes on the back of his institute saying they are not happy with the level of treatment government is meting out to the persons involved and the issue in general.
“We are also calling on the top security influence authority and capability, irrespective of the election 2020 and whichever government is on power to deal mercilessly with these persons if they are identified in one way or the other, for participating or popping up within the secessionist group.”
Mr. Bayor said that, they want the government to project power and force, so as to give encouragement to citizens of the country that, they are doing enough to contain these people. This he said, will prevent citizens from taking arms to fight these people and their own.
Touching on the buses the group destroyed on Tuesday, Mr Bayor said that, although the security agencies might not have seen it coming, some projections can be made looking at the secessionist group’s current activities. He added that, the group is serving notice to the state at this moment and are also transforming from a non-violent entity to a violent entity.
He further disclosed that, for now, they secessionist group will be targeting state installations and property as it is being seen and with time, they are also going to ramp it up by attacking people and hurting them and then, the violence will escalate to the whole of the country.
“That is something every what everybody who is into security should know. So, at this moment the government and the state security should kind of raise their intelligence gathering around this issue and they will be able to forestall some of these issues.”
Speaking on why the Institute for Peace and Governance was not happy with how the government was handling the matter, Mr. Bayor said that, they are not unnecessarily being too harsh but can applaud them in one way because of how some of the issues have been handled.
He iterated the fact that, his institute was asking the government to ramp things up, so that they can stop it all together, because they believe that in addition to gathering intelligence, they should also work with some non-state actors who are probably not aligned in one way or the other to engage with these miscreants to know what their needs and interests are.
He then noted that, if their needs and interest are known, they security agencies will be able to deal with them through mediation and negotiation.
“Once we are able to negotiate with them on their needs and interests, then the position and that mindset will go away.
“We are not saying they should negotiate; we are saying they should facilitate non state actors such as Civil Societies, international and intergovernmental organizations among others to go into engagement, who will then give them the necessary information in order to deal with these people.”
