Tamale — "Fighting violent extremism is a collective responsibility to every citizen of this country," Kathleen Addy, the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education(NCCE), has stated.
She explained that violent extremism had emerged over the past years and the African continent had been noted to be vulnerable and served as hotspot for the activities of terrorist networks.
Ms Addy lamented that despite the continent's commitment, dedication and determination to prevent and counter violent extremism, all actions to cease the discourse and its spread had proven insufficient.
She stated in Tamale at a three-day training of trainers workshop for regional and district directors of the NCCE to deepen their knowledge on violent extremism which was organised by the Commission with support from the European Union(EU) to equip the staff to create awareness, sensitiseand educate the public on activities of threat of violent extremism.
The participants were drawn from the Upper East Region, Northern, Savannah, North East Upper West, Bono, Bono East and Oti Regions to brainstorm on the National Framework for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (NAFPCVET) developed in 2019.
According to MsAddy, it was due to factors such as poor governance, lack of probity, accountability, transparency, porous borders and inadequate security forces created pathway for extremist ideologies to evolve and promote their operations on the continent adding that "neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Mail has already experienced attacks from extremist groups.
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"Although Ghana has been known to be united and peaceful country and has not experienced any extremist attacks yet, the government is fighting earnestly to prevent such invasion and idea of the framework is to outline collaborations of various institutions to identify threats of violent extremism and implement strategies to curb possibility of extremist attacks.
"The Commission has identified among these institutions, with primary mandate to create awareness, sensitise and educate the public on violent extremism, facilitate activities to instill in citizens, security consciousness and situational awareness,"Ms Addy intimated.
She noted NCCE was expected to engender social inclusiveness and community cohesion across the country since unemployment remained main factor motivating the youth to join violent extremism and admonished them to desist from joining such groups.
Alhajj Mohammed Adam, a participant at the workshop lauded the commission for the training which would help them create awareness, educate and sensitise the public especially those along border towns about activities of extremists
