Ghana Instability

Introduction

Security governance is a broad subject ranging from security sector reform and human security to nonmilitary aspects of statecraft. Most discourse on the important dimension of governance, however, is at the international level and dictated by international norms. When it comes to Ghana, the typical question is: Does Ghana have a security problem? If so, how serious is it and what regional implications does it have? These concepts are most relevant when defined in practical terms at the citizen level, where they translate into civil-military relations. Instead of asking if Ghana has a security problem, policymakers should ask: Do Ghanaians feel safe? If not, then Ghana needs better security.

For the United States, Ghana remains an important security and economic partner because of its political leverage over its West African neighbors. Developments in Ghana matter due to the threats they represent for the region, such as the recent rise in political violence, trafficking, and insecurity in urban centers and along the northern borders with Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Togo. Ghana’s weakened state of governance and the politicization of its military have created the type of conditions seen in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso before terrorist organizations overran those countries.

This report is based on field research conducted in Accra and Tamale, Ghana, in March 2024. At the request of the interviewees, the researchers have kept the comments in this report anonymous. To conduct this study, the researchers met with a broad cross-section of civil society leaders representing youth, women, and various ethnic and regional groups; independent journalists; local political and security analysts and academics; military officers; and international diplomats and representatives of international organizations based in Accra and Tamale. Many respondents were not originally from Accra or Tamale, so they shared experiences and observations of life outside the capital in zones directly affected by insecurity.

By law, Ghana is a unitary state, but in practice it is far from that. The country has a national constitution, which is the source of national institutions such as the military, police, and legal system. As Ghana is a pluralistic nation, these institutions do not suit everyone, especially not recently, given several alarming developments such as the chieftaincy conflict in Bawku in the upper east region. Ghana is a democracy, but the democratic system and process have been tested in recent years.

The Ghana most people know enjoys a very positive image and deservingly so. It is home to a conference center for international peacekeeping and regional cultural preservation. A destination for well-heeled diaspora tourists, Ghana projects confidence, cultural prowess, and clout as a pioneer of Pan-Africanism.

Political pundits and security analysts see Ghana as a stalwart for stability. In an area increasingly threatened by violent extremism, coups d’états, and political tyrants, it is one of the few democratic countries that has consistently seen the peaceful transfer of power over the last 20 years.

Ghana has an illustrious military history. Ghanaians took on leadership roles during the deployment of peace support operations by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) into Sierra Leone and Liberia. Ghana is also an important troop contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. Ghanaian troops participated in UN operations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and in the peacekeeping and stabilization operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the last two decades. The U.S. military’s decision to integrate Ghana into interregional and international military exercises, such as Flintlock, has underscored Ghana’s reputation as an important security actor.

Economists recognize Ghana as a regional powerhouse that attracts workers from across the region to its flourishing agri-business and mining industries. Despite conflicts over land management, particularly with farmers and pastoralists across the northern regions of the country, Ghana appears to manage the problem without provoking ethnic or political violence. And yet, behind the veneer, Ghana faces considerable challenges.

The international community increasingly looks to Ghana for regional leadership in a neighborhood where coups d’états and autocracy are gaining ground. Recognizing the longevity of Ghana’s democratic institutions, international leaders sometimes turn a blind eye to human rights irregularities or write blank checks. In 2023, Ghana cashed in on its credibility by convincing creditors to bank there even after its banks defaulted in late 2022 and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had to float Ghana’s economy.

Economists and political allies fear, perhaps rightly, that IMF and World Bank funds might be diverted to political campaign ventures rather than provide desperately needed support for jobs and the education and health sectors. Shortly after the January 2020 election, President Nana Akufo-Addo pledged to “build a cathedral to glory and God” for granting his party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), victory in the elections, but the project stalled due to lack of funds. The announcement in 2023 that the cash-strapped state would move ahead with building the $400 million state-funded cathedral confirmed fears that campaign strategy, not economics, would dictate government spending until Ghana holds its next presidential election in December 2024.

As average Ghanaians struggle to make ends meet and officials make off with millions, the government is having difficulty convincing Ghanaians that it operates in the public’s interest. The population also questions the soundness of the IMF’s actions, which it sees as enabling government mismanagement. In December 2024, Ghanaians asserted their need for change by re-electing President John Dramani Mahama over the incumbent vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia. Mahama’s victory is attributed to dissatisfaction with the incumbent government’s handling of economic issues and Mahama’s campaign promise to renegotiate the $3 billion IMF bailout.

To make matters worse, Ghana is an unwitting host to networks of smuggling rings. As in most countries, Ghana has porous international borders. Criminal networks exploit weak border controls to move people, weapons, tobacco, vehicles, cashews, stolen cattle, cocoa, and timber into or across the country. These so-called trades finance the activities of criminal groups in border areas, especially illegal mining, truck theft, fuel theft, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and above all the theft of cattle in neighboring countries to sell in northern Ghana.

Profits from these trades also allegedly fall into the hands of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) operating in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo. An umbrella coalition of al Qaeda–aligned groups known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen ( JNIM) has aligned with criminal networks involved in the movement of legal and illegal goods. While the incidence of terrorism and the number of Ghanaians involved in terrorist activities were relatively low as of 2024, the growing appeal of international terrorist groups and the increasing exposure of Ghanaians to these groups point to a possible terrorist threat in Ghana. The situation in the northern border areas is becoming more tense and the populations more radicalized, especially due to social media, which increasingly spreads propaganda and calls to destabilize Ghana.

Incidents of political violence in Ghana, along with traditional ethnic and chieftaincy-related violence, underscore how using violence for political ends is becoming increasingly acceptable in Ghana. Recent years have seen an increase in violence related to land disputes and local and district-level elections.

In the words of a Western diplomat, “Ghana has been spared terrorism but not violent extremism.” There is a commonly expressed fear that violent extremist groups could team up with disaffected community members in northern Ghana desperate for security governance dialogue and establish a parallel security protocol based on an exchange of services, information, and cooperation. To some degree, such arrangements already exist among the networks of smugglers and VEOs that operate in the northern border areas.

These networks have grown, in part, due to a normative environment in which local communities accept organized crime by situating it within a cultural ethos and the social welfare roles criminals play. Such norms develop unfettered due to the lack of government presence and control in these areas. These spaces are not ungoverned but rather undergoverned, with inadequate civil and security personnel to reverse the trends that have been developing for decades.

While much attention focuses on the north, Ghana also faces the growing threat of insecurity in urban centers. Despite official rhetoric on external challenges to the country’s security—such as cross-border crime, illegal arms trafficking, and the instability in neighboring Côte d’Ivoire—qualitative research shows that these concerns are dwarfed by concerns about everyday violence. For most Ghanaians, the main threats to their security are domestic violence, crime, food insecurity, poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and the erosion of the quality of state institutions. The state is failing in its duty as the “ultimate provider” of these dimensions of security—namely, economic security, physical security, environmental security, social security, and personal security.

At the heart of this failure is the antiquated colonial lens through which security forces preserve establishment interests and a narrow vision of the state. Rather than serve the welfare of all citizens, a ruling elite has captured the state for their own enrichment, and security is available only to those who can afford it. Such an attitude has triggered a widely repeated public discourse, mainly through social media, that discredits democratic institutions and governments and calls for an alternative system bordering on populism to address public grievances. In short, the threat of insecurity is much more diverse and politically sensitive than commonly acknowledged.

According to discussions with diplomats, security experts, and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the capital and upper provinces, Ghana is on the edge of a political and security crisis that it is ill-suited and ill-prepared to manage—in large part because it does not have an integrated mechanism to unite all actors in making Ghana a safer place to live.

Security plays a pivotal role in enhancing economic development. The safer people feel, the greater the chances they will invest in economic ventures that expand socioeconomic activities and overall trust and confidence. Facing these threats would involve concerted efforts from the government and international community, with Ghanaian citizens taking the lead on identifying ways to manage fragile areas in need of security reform and protection.

Security governance is more art than science, and no approach can claim to produce infallible results. However, whether a top-down institutional approach or a more organic bottom-up approach, nearly all approaches include some version of real or even perceived influence of civilians over government security policies.

Big-picture security governance should strengthen state-society relations and enable participatory and inclusive security measures at the community level. An unavoidable component is the public image of the government’s approach. In Ghana, TikTok and Facebook content creators drive much of the political-social discourse. The combined influence of citizens’ legitimate concerns and a barrage of fake news and messages to manipulate public opinion against the state have placed Ghana’s democracy in the crosshairs.

A Recipe for Safety

During a visit to Ghana in February 2024, a short ride from the hotel to the center of Accra inspired a discussion on feelings of safety. “I don’t feel safe,” said Frank, the middle-aged Uber driver, “because the politicians are in control of the security apparatus, and they don’t care about me or my interests. They only look out for themselves.”

Many Ghanaians feel the same way. A common notion is that Ghana’s social contract with its citizenry is missing a clause on citizen safety. Fortunately, public concerns have not gone unnoticed. The Ghanaian government is aware of its shortcomings in meeting citizens’ expectations. Over the past two decades, with donor support, it has laid out programs to increase public participation in developing its security strategies, including various forms of community policing to allay concerns and build trust.

However, the security governance system continues to suffer from an identity crisis due to the plurality of citizens’ backgrounds and experiences. Citizens feel less concerned with the state’s agenda to keep people safe and have prioritized their own security agendas. Security strategies vary across the country, from impromptu night patrols by village youths to more organized state-recognized militias. Local security groups are not strictly a response to the lack of state effectiveness. Some are linked to precolonial systems that were never disbanded, and their existence continues due to the lack of a better system to replace them.

In many Ghanaian urban centers, civilian policing groups known as “Watch Dogs” attend to their own security and justice needs. Reliance on vigilante justice is not unique to Ghana; in urban centers across Africa, residents resort to community policing groups to meet their security needs. These entities typically emerge in a security vacuum when state-sanctioned security forces cannot provide security to the community’s satisfaction.

In a few African states, public policing has not fully displaced other forms of Indigenous policing systems in the postcolonial era. The endurance of some of these Indigenous policing groups has been driven partly by internal dynamics, including the flexibility of civilian policing groups, the way these groups understand and address security concerns, and their sensitivity to local justice and security. Externally, the endurance of civilian policing groups has been sustained, in part, by the rollback of the state through structural adjustment programs. State support for Watch Dogs in some communities is partly a way to address local security needs while meeting local satisfaction.

The most visible program—the Community Policing Unit—unfolded in 2002, giving rise to somewhat controversial neighborhood watch committees (NWCs). The success of NWCs hinges on the notion that people who live and work in a neighborhood are best suited to understand their area’s resources, problems, and needs. The move was controversial because it led to the formal emergence of Watch Dogs, which sometimes became judge and jury in their communities and were allegedly responsible for human rights abuses. The Watch Dog title has been used to describe a broad range of community-based security units, from traditional security forces and informal patrol groups to more proactive trained units.

Ghana’s statutory legal framework promotes the codification and application of various forms of customary law but does not authorize traditional security systems to administer punishment beyond certain misdemeanors. The result is that some residents view these traditional security systems as weakened, judging them as lame and unattractive, as many local youths seek more aggressive action to establish order and mete out local justice. Hence, they see appeal in the Watch Dogs, which are formally licensed by police and receive some level of training and equipment. In 2023, security analysts warned that some Watch Dogs had begun to receive military-grade weapons and training to act as supports to existing security forces on the ground but without formal incorporation into the security hierarchy or recognized accountability for their actions.

With the support of the German Agency for International Development (GIZ), the Ghana Police Service (GPS) launched the Enhanced Visibility and Community Policing Strategy in late 2022. The program builds on past community policing experiences to enhance police operations. But instead of relying on a civilian force, the program enlists professional police officers to establish rapport with residents by assigning units to patrol at-risk neighborhoods. The strongest benefit to this approach is that it reinforces the image of the state while including local stakeholders in developing security and crime prevention plans in their respective jurisdictions.

Although the format of the program emphasizes the right areas and warrants support, civil society actors call the program poorly planned. The approach is designed to circumvent some shortcomings of the traditional community policing models, but it fails to achieve the same level of presence. Despite attempts by the police administration to establish permanent police posts in some areas, the lack of accommodation has created an ad hoc police presence and frequent turnover of officers allocated to these posts. Because they are not permanently stationed, officers have had difficulty establishing trust with the community. Consequently, police units continue to experience conflict with residents who feel officers are not adequately performing their duties.

Citizen Justice

Unsatiable Expectations

Citizens of Ghana, like those of other West African countries, have long entrusted their security to local entities. These include community-borne safety groups, over which citizens have greater control and in which they have placed their trust to intervene in the local interest. Citizens do not see the national security apparatus as subject to public or citizen control or oversight. Importantly, they do not expect that the state will ensure their safety. That lack of expectation, which has roots in the colonial past, continues to undermine security governance in Ghana today.

The gap between citizens’ expectations and what security forces can do legally is a major issue for African democracies. In absolute terms, security forces cannot fulfill their mandates and appear effective without citizens’ approval and consent. The legitimacy of security forces depends on citizens’ satisfaction with their performance, their level of accountability, and how well they adhere to procedural rules when interacting with citizens. In theory, when the public perceives the police as effective, they will defer to the police’s authority and directives and feel safer because of the services the police provide. In short, a responsive security service can be a good measure of governance, democracy, and development.

The problem emerges when public calls for street justice do not respect the rule of law and due process that police are required to follow. Civilian control is not about giving absolute power to civilians on all security-related matters but rather creating a system of checks and balances to ensure accountability of the security sector in the interests of both the state and communities. The security sector needs and should retain a degree of autonomy in internal operational matters to prevent the politicization of the security sector in the service of political interests.

The police are the first, and often the only, point of contact Ghanaians have with the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, these interactions are marred by widespread corruption, illegal arrest and detention, excessive use of force, and a failure to respond to complaints, which are hallmarks of a regime-style police force unaccountable for its actions.

The concept of national security in the context of Ghana—and indeed the rest of the former British colonies in West Africa—largely focused on the internal public order imperatives of the colonial state, with a secondary emphasis on suppressing “anti-imperial” threats—notably, nationalist agitations. The armed forces had been recruited largely to cope with the internal threat to the public order and colonial state posed by the Indigenes, whose initial hostility to British rule had been over land expropriation issues and resistance to taxes. The police and army, therefore, began as constabulary forces geared toward repressing insurrection, preventing civil violence, and managing rural disorder, rather than as traditional security forces. Indeed, the police force was designed to hold the people down at the least cost to the colonial administration. Mounting pressure for more African participation in the lower rungs of the colonial state led to the recruitment of a handful of locals into the police force. Only during World War II did the state take more meaningful strides toward developing a select local cadre of the officer class.

Since colonial times, the structure of the Ghanaian security forces has changed little. Ghanaians still see them primarily as an apparatus for protecting the ruling elite instead of the people of Ghana. Today, security institutions such as the military and police continue to see themselves as the source of power, which they have retained for the past six decades and are not in the least interested in relinquishing. Public hearings on security matters are not broadcast on television, and transcripts of these hearings are not available to the public.

Low public opinion, corrupt recruitment practices, and underequipped forces have been at the core of low morale within the police. While the GPS recognizes the misconduct that has garnered its poor reputation and low public trust, it is attempting to repair its public face. For instance, as part of the “See Something, Say Something” public safety campaign, authorities are more willing, open, and available to meet with CSOs. But these conversations and platforms are few and far between, and civil society representatives cannot determine whether authorities have accepted their feedback.

The police inspector general has been engaging with youths, going to schools to help them understand the role of defense and security institutions and bridging the gap between these institutions and the population. While the inspector general is popular and seen as a reformist, the public views the police as corrupt and not open to change. As one analyst put it, “In fact, to the populations, even the See Something, Say Something campaign is seen as a contradiction, given the mistrust between the citizens and the police, which often brutalizes and prevents the people from exercising their civic rights.” In the words of a security analyst, “Police officers are a nuisance when you do not need them and useless when you need them.”

The police headquarters in Accra recently revamped its appearance, purchasing new vehicles and creating training protocols to boost professionalism in the police force. However, the shortage of materials leaves police feeling ill prepared and outgunned in neighborhoods where they are needed most. In a recent study, police rank and file complained about patrolling vast areas on foot without bulletproof vests or other protective equipment. Another formidable obstacle is alleged political influence on recruitment practices, wherein politicians fast-track recruitment of urban or rural youth into the police and military to help shore up support for a particular candidate. The recruitment process ensures that the recruits essentially become untouchable and unaccountable to the internal hierarchy, rendering a portion of the police force unmanageable, untrainable, and undisciplined.

As in many parts of the world, security in Ghana is a salient and critical issue requiring the proper governance of the state to maintain peace and prevent threats to the lives and properties of its citizenry. The police, for now, appear to be a dead end when it comes to concerted, effective security governance efforts, especially along Ghana’s northern borders.

A Potential Way Forward

Facilitated Civilian-Military Partnerships

Based on discussions with security entities, citizens, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and CSOs, the Ghanaian military holds a greater level of public trust today than the police and other security forces. The public sees the military as an entity that can get the job done. When faced with a security threat, most Ghanaians trust the military to remove the threat effectively. However, that trust has allowed the military’s presence to spill over into areas that are traditionally public or civilian domains, such as providing close protection for high-profile individuals, escorting bank armored vehicles, and even overseeing crowd control for public and political events.

Governments may deploy the military to perform internal security duties to bolster the tasks of the police service in terms of logistics. During the colonial era in Ghana, the military was employed in various operations to quell disturbances and riots, meaning its historical roots are intertwined with the maintenance of internal security. However, more recently, deployment of the military has been associated with compensating for the lack of effectiveness and inefficiency of police units to fulfill tasks and meet public and private expectations.

The practice of combining military and police functions has inherent dangers. For this reason, upon attaining independence, Ghanaian leaders enacted a law that regulated the presence and conduct of the military employed in performing internal security functions.

Despite the remarkable democratic changes that have reshaped Ghana over the past three decades, its defense and security institutions, including the military, have not changed much regarding civil-military relations, which are driven by both trust and fear. Ghanaians see the military as serving politicians who prefer the status quo, which allows them to co-opt the armed forces for their political agenda. In other words, political alternance has not necessarily brought change, as ruling parties instrumentalize the security apparatus to their benefit, setting off a vicious cycle. As a result, there is no real civilian oversight or demand for accountability and transparency. In recent years, civilian trust in the military has also eroded.

For instance, in 2021, the military stormed the parliament during a vote for speaker, shocking and terrifying the population. But to date, there has been no public hearing on the matter. In a way, this is a consequence of the normalization of military involvement in domestic affairs. In 2020, the armed forces were deployed to secure the elections, further feeding the belief that they were protecting the interests of the ruling party. There have been violent encounters between military officers and civilians. In one case, an officer was killed in a community targeted by the military after an officer’s mobile telephone was stolen and several people were arrested. These incidents will continue as long as the armed forces undertake law enforcement activities. Sustained and strong civilian oversight of these institutions is the most efficient way to dial back on these deployments and one of the pillars of positive civil-military relations.

The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana establishes the framework for security agency operations and demarcates the roles of the military and those of the police, among other security agencies. However, the constitution also states clearly that the armed forces shall be equipped and maintained to perform their role of defending Ghana as well as performing other functions for the development of Ghana as the president may determine—a considerable window for a diversity of tasks and responsibilities.

In most countries, the military is one of the most respected institutions. Using the military in roles that it has not been trained for and that are not prescribed by its doctrine can erode the respect it enjoys from the citizenry. In the long term, this erosion can threaten the foundation of the military as an institution. For these reasons, most political pundits recommend that Ghana restrict the military’s role and establish a paramilitary unit to assist the police in law enforcement. Allowing the military to serve in internal security operations will have detrimental effects on civilian policing, professionalization of the military, and national security. The loyalty of the military—and for that matter of the defense and security institutions—is not to the central government as such but to the established government as a political authority. Thus, the military’s duties should not extend to internal security except in circumstances of last resort.

Ghanaian citizens may be grateful for their military stepping in to stabilize a dangerous civil disorder, and the military may perform this intervening role in a responsible and respectful manner. But its presence undermines the nation’s foundations of civilian control through a secret chain of martial command and accountability. Converting military capabilities to policing functions will have severe implications for the nation’s democratization process and for the military itself, especially as Ghana enters another electoral phase in late 2024.

The largely amiable relationship between the military and society may present an opportunity for an enduring and positive civilian-military dialogue in Ghana. The generally uncritical attitude civilians have toward the military may provide openings for local protocols or strategies for soldiers and the civilians they are meant to protect. Civil-military committees (CMCs) were designed as platforms for the military and civilians to exchange information and air grievances. Unfortunately, CMCs have been overly centralized and instrumentalized to impose political agendas rather than allow citizen feedback that could revolutionize information processing in remote sensitive areas of the country and stabilize violent regions such as in the upper east.

During the last three decades, Ghana has undertaken governance reforms to improve the performance of its governing institutions. These reforms include modernization of the legal and judicial systems, decentralization of certain aspects of governance, and efforts to control corruption, among others. However, the citizen-military relations (CMR) institutional framework remains largely unaltered. Ghana has no legal provisions regarding CMR. Although the constitution mentions the armed forces in various places, it does not impose specific regulations on their relationship with civilians.

CMCs represent an opportunity to address the diversity of challenges and approaches to security governance with salient issues in each geographic area dictating concrete action. Unfortunately, CMCs in Ghana face several challenges. First, the administrative system is overcentralized, which weakens local committees’ ability to operate effectively. Second, the political environment in Ghana is heavily partisan. Government and opposition politicians sometimes use the military to advance their own political interests. In such a political environment, CMCs struggle to function independently and appear as neutral bodies. Third, the functions of CMCs are unclear. Most people think CMCs just implement government policy at the local level. Consequently, they sometimes see the military as an institution that implements policy instead of having direct input into policy.

Bilateral support for developing functional CMCs should clarify Ghana’s internal policy on incorporating active-duty military into programming that encourages understanding between civilians and the military. Considering Ghana’s history of political recruits, donors must insist on vetting military participants to ensure they are willing partners in the process and not subject to political influence or a history of disciplinary issues.

In the past, CMR programs have fizzled out because they lack proper timing or urgency or they have been overly focused on subjecting the military to civilian rule and management. CSOs have expressed the need for training to understand the role they could play in revitalizing CMCs by convening citizens and military in a neutral, apolitical environment to discuss local security concerns and steps forward. Bilateral support from donors for this process may help increase NGOs’ and CSOs’ understanding of the roles and limitations of civil and military control and introduce civilian police entities, wherever possible, to boost the credibility of civilian law enforcement. The moment is ripe to formalize such a dynamic approach to security governance, especially in the north, where there is an increase in threats and a tacit recognition of the military as an ally. NGOs and CSOs already in contact with the military and in tune with community concerns offer the path of least resistance for establishing a frictionless framework for dialogue.

Equally important, members of the parliament and their staff need training in civil-military relations and oversight processes for this bilateral engagement to have the lasting impact Ghana needs as it faces real threats inside and outside its borders.

Recommendations

Ghana has come a long way. In 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan country to achieve independence, and it quickly established itself as a regional leader. However, due to domestic political and security dynamics, coupled with Cold War politics, Ghana experienced military coups from 1966 to 1979 before transitioning to democratic rule in 1992. For the past three decades, Ghanaians have embraced a democratic system and its inherent political alternance. They expect their leaders to deliver on the expectations and promises of good governance, security, and stability. Democratization has also helped professionalize the military and produce one of Africa’s rare republican armies striving to stay above the political fray. However, given the current economic, social, political, and security contexts, it behooves the country’s leadership to correct course and rebuild the people’s faith in democracy and trust in security and defense institutions.

Accordingly, the Ghanaian government and the parliament should consider several initiatives to foster better citizen engagement and institutional responsiveness, and bridge the gap between security providers and civilians, by undertaking the following:

• Launch dialogues with key civilian stakeholders, starting with traditional leaders—particularly in the areas where they wield great influence and including youths, women, and others—to get the full measure of the level of discontent and the drivers of mistrust between the population and institutions. CSOs involved in security issues should be allowed to speak without fear of harassment or retribution.

• Adopt, promote, implement, and enforce policies that ensure accountability, transparency, and inclusivity.

• Hold more public hearings in parliament and other avenues on matters of law enforcement, security, and defense, with expert contributions from CSOs that work closely with the population.

• Expand human rights training programs for security and defense institutions, including gender-sensitive training, to diffuse tensions between these institutions and the population.

• Reinforce and augment the police’s capacity to carry out its mission, including overhauling and reforming procedures and structures, recruitment, training, and remuneration. These changes are necessary to help police perform better and rebuild the people’s trust.

• Depoliticize the military so it stays above the political fray and remains republican. This entails limiting the use of the military in law enforcement operations, which is critical in preserving discipline, unity, and professionalism. It will also preserve the military’s mystique and civilians’ trust in the armed forces.

• Address the citizenship issue of the Fulbes/Fulanis living in border regions. These disenfranchised and stigmatized communities are vulnerable to abuses by Ghanaian officials and extremist groups, with the latter recruiting from these communities.

After facing setbacks in the Sahel, the United States must recognize that the lack of citizen access to the discourse on security represents an underlying driver of instability in coastal West Africa. The absence of state engagement in citizens’ concerns has emboldened alternate—and sometimes violent—local strategies for crime fighting, including tacit and overt alliances with groups linked to violent extremist organizations. Therefore, U.S. strategic security objectives in littoral West Africa should prioritize reducing the factors that have unraveled stability in the Sahel region—namely, the lack of localized security governance.

The United States and other allies are best positioned to help Ghana address these challenges by supporting programs that accomplish the following:

• Train members of the parliament and their staff to build expertise in oversight of defense and security institutions through exchange programs with legislative bodies of partner countries, including the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

• Build the capacity of CSOs working on security issues to acquire the necessary expertise for overseeing, monitoring, and sustaining effective civil-military relations.

• Build the capacity of defense and security institutions and provide the necessary expertise and best practices for communicating with CSOs and the population and sustaining effective civil-military relations.

Ghana is a key partner for regional security. The telltale signs of a breakdown in civil-military relations cannot be missed. Given the worrisome security developments in neighboring countries, Ghana must address these challenges and correct course. Strong civil-military relations and oversight processes are crucial pillars of stability and have the lasting impact Ghana needs as the country faces real threats from within and outside its borders.

Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is a senior fellow and director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a lecturer in African studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Karana Olivier is a mediator and conflict analysis expert with over 20 years’ experience working in armed conflicts in Central and West Africa with armed forces, police, and nonstate actors on topics such as peacekeeping, border security, and the threat of violent extremism in the Mano River region, the Liptako Gourma region of the Sahel (northern Burkina Faso, central Mali, and southwestern Niger), and most recently the littoral countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Cote d’Ivoire, where he is based.