Prof. Marfo urges good civilian-security relations to promote peace

Professor Samuel Marfo, a Professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), has highlighted the need for civilians and security agencies to build good relations in order to maintain peace in the communities.

Prof. Marfo, who is also a member of the Upper West Regional Peace Council, stated that security is a shared responsibility and costly, and therefore there is a need for both civilians and the various security agencies to come together to build broken windows before it becomes worse.

The Professor of Peace and Conflict Resolution highlighted this while he was facilitating a programme in Tumu in the Sissala East Municipality under the theme “Promoting civilian security engagement for collaboration for early warning to prevent conflicts and violent extremism in the Upper West Region.

The engagement is under the Atlantic Corridor Project being implemented by the National Peace Council with sponsorship from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Prof. Marfo noted that to build good civilian-security relations, there was a need for them to understand issues from each other's perspectives, saying that this could only happen if there was unity among the two.

He pointed out that good security-civilian relations would give meaning to the “See something, say something” policy of National Security, arguing that only then will civilians feel free to report to the security agencies anytime they see something suspicious or pick up any early warning signal.

Prof. Marfo, however, cautioned civilians to always endeavour to verify whatever they see before reporting in order to prevent raising false alarms, which could breach the trust between them and the security services.

Mr. Emmanuel Danyomah, the Executive Secretary of the Upper West Regional Peace Council, noted that recent security threats called for serious collaboration between civilians and the security services to counter such threats.

He also advised communities to deal with petty conflicts and divisiveness among themselves or between them and the security services to prevent extremists from taking advantage.

Mr. Danyomah therefore thanked the donors (UNDP and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) for the project and expressed hope that it would bring a lot of change in the way people report early warning signals and also improve the relationship between civilians and the security services.

Mr. Limann Alhassan, the Sissala East Municipal Coordinating Director, noted that the municipality had a lot of unresolved disputes and conflicts coupled with the porous nature of the borders, which made it difficult to maintain security but gave the assurance that the Assembly and the security services would leave no stone unturned to ensure that the municipality was protected from any external security threat.

He encouraged participants to say something when they saw something, stressing that it was because of their vigilance that they were enjoying peace in the municipality.

He lauded the Peace Council and its donors for the project, saying it had come to complement their efforts towards the sustenance of peace within the municipality.

Maulvi Isshaque Yakubu of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission urged security personnel to deal with civilians with a high sense of professionalism to improve their relations.

“Civilians are not trained like you, so if an ignorant civilian comes to display ignorance, still treat the person with professionalism, and it would help in promoting healthy civilian-security relations," he stated.

Participants were taken through topics such as the rationale for civilian-security engagement, principles underlying civilian-security engagement (reporting, communication, accountability), and challenges of civilian-security relations.