The three topics investigated in this report exhibit similar dynamics. In the short term, Ghana’s political system appears to be serving as a bulwark against VEO intervention. Indeed, throughout the reporting period we found no direct evidence of VEO groups currently attempting to use tensions surrounding chieftaincy issues, Fulbe communities, or vigilante groups to infiltrate into Ghana. However, once political parties change how they relate to rural communities after the elections, the political system will exacerbate vulnerabilities that extremists could exploit.
Extreme politicization: momentary bulwark
Across the three topics, politicians’ intervention leading up to the 2024 elections may temporarily frustrate any potential attempt by violent extremists to further infiltrate into Ghana. While the specifics differ, in all three subjects investigated political actors are, at least temporarily, filling a void that extremists, in other contexts, have used to warm their way into rural communities.
In Chereponi the politicization of chieftaincy disputes has resulted in the formation of dense and complex networks of alliances and rivalries that connect subchiefs on the border with Togo to powerbrokers in Accra. Competition between these actors – for chieftaincy positions and political dominance – exacerbates local tensions and can lead (and already has led) to violence. However, these conflicts occur along already existing political fault lines. Essentially, local chiefs and their rivals have powerful and competing (state) patrons from whom they receive support, and therefore have no clear interest in forging alliances with extremists (if they were offered). As residents in Chereponi indicated, communities are already so saturated and polarized by these disputes that any newcomer to the area would immediately be recognized and called to answer to a local faction.[181] Partisan politics is a bulwark against violent extremists.
Meanwhile, Fulbe participation in politics is grounded on the present belief among many Fulbe that politics is an effective way to integrate into Ghana and to address the communities’ specific grievances. An NPP organizer in Tamale reported that this was their explicit message to Fulbe communities: “we must join politics to build our tribe.”[182] Over the last eight years the Fulbe have joined the lower ranks of both parties, and through Samira Bawumia’s office, they have secured jobs in the civil service (the fire service, immigration, and education). Leading up to the elections both parties are planning to visit Fulbe communities and to distribute gifts (oil, rice and (allegedly) motorcycles). For the moment, beyond the division that it sows, participation in partisan politics represents a bulwark against insurgent expansion as it provides an avenue, at least temporarily, for the Fulbe to attempt to address their communal grievances.
Similarly, politicians’ re-engagement with vigilante groups provides short-term affiliation employment for a vulnerable demographic and, for those associated with the winning party, hope for more stable support in the future. This engagement has already proven useful for intelligence gathering in border areas. The alleged recruitment of former vigilantes by national security bodies not only equips these state organs with vigilantes’ local knowledge, but also provides a channel for current vigilante groups to report potentially irregular activities. For example, vigilantes in the Upper West region took credit for informing the security services about the arrival of asylum seekers from Burkina Faso in 2023.[183] As for chieftaincy conflicts and Fulbe issues, the patronage and temporary co-optation of vigilante groups during the campaign season deprives violent extremists of potential recruits and collaborators and instead ties these people temporarily to the state.
Ghana’s political system is still exacerbating divisions
While partisan politics is a bulwark against infiltration, Ghana’s hyper-competitive political system also exacerbates local disputes and vulnerabilities. The danger for Ghana is that these vulnerabilities can be further inflamed following the December 2024 election when politicians partly or completely withdraw from rural communities. That might open up room for other actors to intervene. Specific avenues exist for each of the three problems.
Generally, political parties have increased the stakes of chieftaincy conflicts and intensified disputes. In Chereponi and beyond, politicization is undermining existing leadership structures. A 2022 Afrobarometer poll recorded that over seventy percent of the public in Ghana believe that chiefs pursue actions which serve their own interests more than those of their community.[184] As JNIM’s local agenda can seek to dismantle elites’ structures this is a clear long-term risk.
Moreover, post-elections, politicians may reduce their support for chiefs. As their previous patrons withdraw, chiefs (or more militant members of their coalitions) may consider alternative alliances to ensure their survival. While there is little evidence of extremists playing into these fault lines directly, there is evidence of violent extremists who have pragmatically played into local conflicts against elites (cf. in Central Mali and Burkina Faso). These risks are especially high in places where communities have already suffered violent conflicts and security deployments are inadequate or are perceived as being predatory.
A final long-term risk around chieftaincy is how social relationships break down and lead to the marginalization of groups. In central Mali and northern Burkina Faso violent extremists have won sympathizers and recruits by appealing to historically marginalized subgroups. This research has found marginalized communities in the Chereponi district, some embedded in social relations through family and ethnic ties with places up to 30 kilometres across the border in Togo.[185]
A similar long-term risk exists concerning the Fulbe. Extremists will likely continue to pay disproportionate attention to wooing Fulbe to their ranks. Politicization has exacerbated divisions within Fulbe communities which, if left to fester, may provide openings for extremists. Beyond the hyper-local divisions outlined in Chapter 3, there is a risk that, as the Fulbe become more invested in Ghana’s hyper-competitive politics, divisions will emerge on a wider scale. At the moment the politicized Fulbe elite belong to both parties, and do not represent a specific caste or clan interest. However, since this research was conducted the leaders of Fulbe civil society groups have made their political leanings public, creating fears that these groups, an emerging vector for unity among the community, will be less effective in addressing Fulbe needs if they cannot work with their political opponents.
Furthermore, there is a danger that the politicization of the Fulbe will result in the benefits only being accrued by elites within the community, leaving more marginalised subgroups in the cold. There are already complaints, particularly among semi-nomadic herders, that these elites look down on them. In northern Burkina Faso and central Mali, the integration of Fulbe elites into flawed political systems that did not address rural grievances ended up contributing to divisions between Fulbe elites and semi-nomadic pastoralists that were exploited by extremists.
And finally, there is a widespread understanding among Fulbe that following the election the political parties will forget about their promises. This leads to the larger question of whether Fulbe will be able to address their grievances by participating in partisan politics. While there are cases of party members helping Fulbe to acquire identification cards and a handful of civil service appointments, parties spend more time distributing campaign gifts than addressing substantive policy issues. These gifts may sway voters on election day, but they will not address the core issues of statelessness and victimization by mob violence, potentially leaving space for those proposing more radical solutions.
Lastly, the (de)politicization of vigilante groups presents perhaps the most serious risk for Ghana among the topics covered in this report. In the immediate term, the looming 2024 election is already taking on an existential angle. For NPP-affiliated groups eight years of appointments and patronage could vanish overnight. For groups associated with the NDC, the election represents the opportunity to come in from the wilderness.[186] Once the election is over, seasonal vigilante work will end and hundreds of young men accustomed to selling their ability to engage in violence will be looking for work. These “professional vigilantes”, who see the use of force as a business, will move to other illicit activities such as gold mining, land seizing and potentially even banditry – activities that have long been used by extremists to find collaborators and recruits.[187]
At the same time, depending on how relations between vigilantes and the state develop, there is a danger that professionalized vigilante groups mutate into communal militias and become a target for extremist attacks. Vigilantes in Ghana are rarely organized based on ethnicity, but there are cases of vigilantes targeting ethnic minorities scapegoated for criminality (cf. Fulbe). Vigilantes in the Upper West region indicated that they had already warned security services of Fulbe asylum seekers arriving from Burkina Faso, who they assumed were an inherent security risk.[188] While the context is different, vigilante groups in northern Ghana share similarities with communal militias in neighbouring countries.
This is finally particularly true for the risk associated with the instrumentalization of vigilante group members for information and intelligence gathering. In the north of neighbouring Togo government informants have become deliberate targets for JNIM.[189] Ghanaian security and intelligence agencies should be aware of the risk of inflaming communal tensions or becoming targets for nearby extremists before deepening engagement with vigilantes.
In short, there may be short-term benefits to the enmeshing of partisan political interests and hyper-local disputes leading up to the 2024 election. But in the longer term this is a troubling development for Ghana, and represents a significant vulnerability as JNIM and other militant groups gather strength on the country’s borders.