We’ll graduate our response to counter attacks from herdsmen – CDS

The Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant-General Obed Akwa says the security agency is determined to employ force to bring a closure to the menace caused by nomadic herdsmen at Agogo.

He reiterated that the military cum police detailed to the area would increase the force that ought to be applied if they face any resistance.

Lieutenant-General Akwa was addressing the Agogo Traditional Council in the Ashanti region on a fact-finding mission to end the conflict between nomadic herdsmen and farming communities at Asante Akyem North and Sekyere Afram Plains Districts.

“We need to make this point very, very clear, that no attack on a soldier or a policeman or any other security person or in fact any ordinary citizen shall go without a response. We consider such attack as an attack on the state,” the CDS stressed.

About 200 joint military and police force were deployed to the area to support the Operation Cowleg already on the ground to evacuate the herdsmen causing problems to citizens and their farmlands.

Lieutenant-General Akwa pointed out: “If anybody dare attack them, then they have defied the authority of government, and, as I said, such attacks cannot go without response, and this response will be proportionate. It will be graduated, depending on the level of attack, we will up our game. It will address the core problems of the Traditional Area.”

Recently, three soldiers and a police officer on operational duty in the area were allegedly shot by herdsmen who ambushed them.

He therefore sent “a clear message to those involved in this dastardly act that they cannot continue to act with impunity in the state of Ghana.”

He assured residents that the security personnel “will be unrelenting on this assignment until we bring everything to closure” and called for moral and material support from the traditional leaders and local authority

The Queen Mother of Agogo Traditional Area, Nana Juaben Afrakumah Serwaa Kusi pleaded with the security personnel to execute their task professionally without fear or favour.

She particularly emphasised on the need for the security personnel to watch out for persons who may attempt to bribe them.