Ghana’s Northern Sovereignty Gap – Jnim and the Burkinabe Border

In May 2024, Ghana’s former Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Boniface Gambila, offered a candid description of what happens along Ghana’s 602-kilometer border with its northern neighbor: ‘Believe it or not, they are able to come into Ghana and go back. They move in and go back.’ He was talking about operatives of the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), al-Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate, which has spent years waging war in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger while establishing a logistics and support…