GO AHEAD, REGSEC (WED., MARCH 24, 2009)

THE Northern Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has made an incentive offer of GH¢300 to all residents of the Tamale metropolis who surrender illegal weapons in their possession to the security agencies within the next one month.
The decision, which was taken at an emergency meeting, followed the failure of residents to surrender even a single weapon when the first deadline announced by the Northern Regional Minister elapsed last Friday.
But barely 24 hours after the REGSEC decision, a security analyst, Mr Emmanuel Sowatey, has taken the body to task. In his opinion, “the weapons buy-back move by the REGSEC is wrong and out of place”.
For him, the more important thing for the REGSEC to do was to address the demand-supply chain of the weapons.
He also explained that the REGSEC should have identified and indicated what type of weapons were being retrieved because the GH¢300 offer was ambiguous.
According to him, an AK 47 cost about GH¢1,000.
Much as the DAILY GRAPHIC appreciates the issues raised by Mr Sowatey, we think that it is important to take the first major step, rather than fold our arms and look on unconcerned.
We, therefore, applaud the REGSEC for its bold initiative after that initial failure and urge the council to intensify public education on the matter to make the exercise a success.
As the REGSEC has already indicated, its next line of action will largely depend on the extent to which the people will comply with the latest directive and we have no qualms with that.
But if the scenarios provided by Mr Sowatey are anything to go by, then it would not be surprising if the people refuse to surrender the expensive and more potent AK 47 and the REGSEC would have to start mapping out a strategy to ensure that it wins the war against the illegal trade in arms.
For our part, we suggest a search-and-destroy operation and if it should, indeed, get that far, it will be the duty of all residents to co-operate with the REGSEC and other security agencies to flush out all the bad nuts in the metropolis.
The people of the Tamale metropolis and the Dagbon area have the constitutional right to live in peace and breathe the air of freedom. Consequently, we cannot allow a few disgruntled elements to take the law into their own hands and make life uncomfortable for the law-abiding members of society.
It has cost the nation a fortune to keep the peace in the Dagbon area all these years, but for how long can we continue to do this when majority of our people are wallowing in abject poverty?
The DAILY GRAPHIC thinks it is time to nip the problem in the bud and nothing must stop us in our efforts to bring the situation in the Tamale metropolis in particular and the Dagbon area in general to normalcy.