Ranking Member on the Defense and Interior Committee of Parliament, James Agalga, has questioned the seemingly panic mode of the government regarding a potential threat of terrorism in the country.

According to him, all things being equal, there should be no need for government to panic as measures have already been put in place to either prevent or counter acts of violent extremism in the country.

He was speaking about the National Framework for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism which runs a Counter Terrorism Centre supposed to serve as a fusion centre for risk analyses and coordination of intelligence reports with the agencies making the entire input etc.

He explained that if the Centre is functioning as it’s supposed to there should be no reason for the uncoordinated alert notification that has plagued the government after realizing potential; threat of attack.

“So why are we having an uncoordinated issue of alert notifications from the same outfit? The Deputy National Security Coordinator and the Ministry are supposed to be working under one umbrella and that is why that centre was established,” he said.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express he further stated that “The fact that we’re beginning to witness how uncoordinated the alert notification is becoming right now suggests there’s a problem with implementation. And that for me is not too good because we’ve lived with this problem; Burkina Faso started having issues as far back as 2015.

“That shouldn’t put us in panic mode because we anticipated that once there was a southward drift after the collapse of the Libyan regime we saw what happened in Mali, Niger, Chad and the Burkina Faso so we had been preparing all along.

“So they’ll tell you they’re establishing FOBs in the northern parts of the country, it means that we have been preparing all along.”

He added that the issue with implementation of the coordinated approach should be addressed immediately in order for the government and its security apparatus, and the general public as a whole to be prepared for any imminent attack.

“Our strategy was supposed to be a coordinated response to the terror threat. So the point is why are we in panic mode? We shouldn’t be. And that is why I’m saying that the fact that we’re in panic mode now suggests that there is a problem with implementation …”