?Expert Suggests Security Training for Religious Leaders

By Evangel Kelvin Ainoo

A security analyst and leading partner of African Centre for Conflict Resolution, Peace and Security (AACREPS), Dr Kwesi Biney, has appealed to all religious leaders in the country to undertake security and intelligence training to ensure safe environment in churches and other places of worship.

According to the security analyst, priests, elders, ushers, youth leaders, church stewards and the entire church administration must undergo some form of security and intelligence training that would enable them to counter the emerging security threats of terror attacks, kidnapping, assassination and vigilantism gradually creeping into the country.

Dr Biney who was speaking on the topic: "Education on Ghana's security issues" at a forum organised by the Calvary Methodist Church for its congregation in Accra yesterday disclosed that churches and other worship centres have been the target for terrorists, robbery attacks and indiscriminate killings, hence the need for the church to tighten up their security and intelligence.

"As we all know, public gathering requires security to monitor and check activities of individuals, and I can say churches are also considered as a public place where all calibre of people with different intentions, are permitted entry so why not make security a priority?" he asked.

"In the case of Rev. Dr David Nabegmado, head pastor of the Central Assemblies of God Church, who was stabbed to death on his own church premises last year, I cried bitterly when I heard the incidence," Dr Biney said.

He said a well-structured internal security and intelligence practice for Ghanaian churches would equip them to ensure safety in the house of God as well as to protect the congregation from theft or any form of attack.

Dr Biney cited the example of the attack on the Catholic Church in Burkina Faso where gunmen shot and killed a priest and five worshippers, saying that this sad incidence could not happen if the ushers and the priests were trained in security and intelligence.

He said the appeal does not only go to churches, but also to mosques and any other form of worship centres to equip its leaders and worshippers with security and intelligence skills to protect themselves and the environment they worship from external attack and brutalities.

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