Ghana is a west African country that has so far been spared the jihadist violence ravaging its neighbours in the Sahel. It shares a 600km-long border with Burkina Faso, where the ruling junta controls barely half the country.
More than half of all terrorism-related deaths globally in 2024 were in the Sahel; not one was in Ghana. The country has been a vital bulwark against the jihadists' march across west Africa. A leader of JNIM, the most powerful jihadist group in the Sahel, said in 2024 that it aimed to expand into Ghana, Togo and Benin. Benin has experienced two of the deadliest attacks in its history; Togo counted a record number of attacks in 2024. Even Ivory Coast, the region's most prosperous economy, was attacked as recently as 2021.
Several factors explain Ghana's relative safety. Nowhere in its borderlands is as inaccessible to the state as the vast, ungoverned forests straddling Togo, Benin and their Sahelian neighbours. Ghana's security forces are relatively professional: the army has built new bases in the north and stepped up border patrols. Local residents largely trust the soldiers and are willing to help identify suspected militants.
Yet the most important reason may be that JNIM has chosen not to attack, preferring Ghana as a market and safe haven. Some fighters are said to own houses in Ghana where their families live. Profits from cattle theft, a big source of JNIM's income, depend on Ghana's livestock markets. Motorbikes loaded with petrol cross into Burkina Faso from the border every day.
Local leaders and the government largely tolerate the fighters as long as they do not cause trouble in Ghana.
Conditions in the far north are similar to those across the border. Local conflicts of the sort jihadists are skilled at exploiting are common. The Fulani, a minority ethnic group scattered across west Africa, are not killed by the army as is common in Mali and Burkina Faso, but nor are they well integrated. Compared with Ivory Coast, the government has invested less in infrastructure or job-creation programmes in the north.
Bawku, a northern town, is notorious for violent local conflicts and the illegal arms trade.
Some two-thirds of Ghanaians favour giving divine intervention a role in politics. Charismatic preacher-prophets have been a feature of Ghanaian public life since Pentecostalism took hold in the 1980s, but social media have expanded their reach and made their claims more outlandish. In 2025, after the defence and environment ministers were killed in a helicopter crash, videos surfaced of pastors claiming to have foreseen the disaster. The government established a reporting mechanism for sensitive prophecies, overseen by Elvis Ankrah, the presidential envoy for inter-faith and ecumenical relations. A bill defining hate speech broadly as the promotion of "negative feelings" was introduced as part of wider efforts to rein in online misinformation, though critics fear it could be used to silence dissent. Mormonism has been growing rapidly in Ghana. Since 2004 a gleaming Mormon temple has occupied a large plot on Accra's Independence Avenue, one of the capital's most historic thoroughfares. The church's membership only recently surpassed 100,000 among Ghana's 34m people, but it punches above its demographic weight, having forged ties with prominent politicians through conferences promoting "family values".
Ghana mandated that 5% of its state pension fund's investments go to private equity and venture capital, part of a broader African push to channel domestic savings into productive investment on the continent.
Thousands of Africans have been recruited, often under false pretences, to fight for Russia in Ukraine. At least 55 Ghanaians have died. In Accra one recruiter allegedly charged victims hefty upfront fees and later deducted 130,000 roubles from their monthly salaries; recruits were made to sign year-long military contracts in Russian, which they could not understand, and given only a week's training. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana's foreign minister, described Russia as "going all out in taking advantage of people who are looking for jobs and greener pastures." Mr Ablakwa met Volodymyr Zelensky in early 2026 to lobby for the release of two Ghanaian prisoners of war and to assemble what he called an "international coalition of the willing" to fight trafficking.
John Mahama became president of Ghana. He has tried to patch things up with the military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to make common cause against jihadists. Ghanaian soldiers co-operate closely with their Burkinabe counterparts, sharing intelligence and sometimes allowing cross-border operations.
In January 2025 Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger quit the Economic Community of West African States, the main regional bloc.
Ghana's informal trade is far larger than official statistics suggest. "Market queens", the women who dominate informal trade in west Africa, source goods from across the region, hiring fleets of lorries to shift produce over long distances. Nearly half of Ghana's trade in Africa is with countries with which it does not share a border. Burkina Faso's recent restrictions on shea-nut exports, designed to boost domestic processing, have closed factories in Ghana and Ivory Coast.
I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.