Akufo-Addo hails Major General Kotia for Boundary Commission service

President Akufo-Addo has commended the national co-ordinator of the Ghana Boundary Commission, Major General Emmanuel Wekem Kotia, for his dedicated service to the nation since his appointment to the Commission.

In remarks after swearing in the newly constituted board of the Ghana Boundary Commission (GhBC) at Jubilee House today, 15 October 2021, President Akufo-Addo said that since his appointment as the national co-ordinator, General Kotia has performed exceptionally, as has his team.

The president urged the new board, on which General Kotia sits, to give the national co-ordinator and his team all the support they need to address existing and future border and boundary challenges.

“Since the passage of Act 795 in 2010, apart from the board of the Commission, the operational architecture necessary for the Commission to function properly was not put in place. It was therefore necessary for the [Institute of Security Studies] to see to the day-to-day management of our boundary concerns while the board focused on the broader area of giving policy direction,” President Akufo-Addo said.

“It was for this reason that, in July 2020, I appointed a distinguished general of the Ghana Armed Forces, Major Dr General Emmanuel Kotia, as the national co-ordinator for the Ghana Boundary Commission”.

President Akufo-Addo further stated: “Since establishing this operational mechanism, the Commission under the leadership of General Kotia, has facilitated boundary negotiations with Togo which had been pending since 2017 and has reached an agreement with its Togolese equivalent on a road map for amicable resolution of the negotiation before the end of this year”.

“There are also ongoing efforts to settle border problems with Burkina Faso in Paga, in the Kasina Nakana district, and Sapeliga in the Bawku West District, both in the Upper East Region. The vast amount of mineral resources along our borders including in the famous dollar power, in the Savannah Region, makes it imperative that we conclude these matters once and for all to forestall any potential needless conflicts” President Akufo-Addo added.

International treaties

In his address, the president said there are international conventions to which Ghana is a party as a member the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States and that General Kotia and his team, with the support of the governing board, must ensure that these are fully implemented.

“As a member in good standing of the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ghana is a party to a number of regional and continental treaties on border issues, including the AU Convention on Cross-Border Co-operation [the Niamey Convention], the AU border programme strategy and the ECOWAS regional cross-border support programme.

“You must work to ensure the full implementation of these agreements and the ratification of the Niamey Convention,” President Akufo-Addo said.

Profile of General Kotia

Dr Emmanuel Wekem Kotia is a major general of the Ghana Armed Forces.

He has served honourably with the military for over 35 years, distinguishing himself as an international analyst and expert in defence and security. He is an astute speaker in national and international forums on topics relating to international/national security, international politics and defence studies.

General Kotia is currently the chief executive of the Ghana Boundary Commission. His immediate past appointment was as Commander of the Western Sector of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2018 and 2019. His last appointment in Ghana before that was as deputy commandant of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra.

By way of academic qualifications, he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (first-class honours) in political science and sociology from the University of Ghana, an MSc in global security from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom and a PhD in political science from the University of Ghana.

He was appointed a professor of peace and conflict studies at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, United States, in 2013. He lectured a three-credit course on peace and security in Africa for students on the PhD and Master’s courses in international conflict management at Kennesaw State University from 2013 to 2017. In 2014 he was also appointed a visiting lecturer of the University of Bedfordshire in the UK, where he teaches every year a three-credit course in peace and security for the Master’s degree in international relations.

General Kotia was commissioned into the Artillery Corps of the Ghana Armed Forces in 1986. Within the Ghana military he was commanding officer of the 66 Artillery Regiment of the Ghana army between 2005 and 2009. He also served as a directing member of staff/lecturer at the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFCSC) from 2009 to 2011.

He was the chief instructor at KAIPTC from 2011 to 2016 and one of the longest-serving instructors at the Ghana Military Academy, remaining in post between 1993 and 2000. He was awarded a medal for long service and good conduct by the Ghana Armed Forces in August 2001.

Kotia has served on many UN peacekeeping operations, including four tours with the UN Mission in Lebanon (1987, 1991, 2000/01 and 2006/07). He was the commanding officer of the Ghana Battalion with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon from 2006 to 2007.

Other peacekeeping operations on which he has served are ECOMOG (Liberia, 1990), MINURSO (Western Sahara, 1994), UNTAC (Cambodia, 1992), UNAMIR (Rwanda, 1993), MONUC (Democratic Republic of Congo, 2002) and MONUSCO (Democratic Republic of Congo, 2018/19).

General Kotia led the process of acquiring institutional and programme accreditation for running academic courses at the GAFCSC and KAIPTC.

He was subsequently the lead consultant who developed the KAIPTC Master of Arts courses in conflict, peace and security and in gender, peace and security. He also helped develop the PhD course in international conflict management in 2011. He taught two courses on the KAIPTC academic calendar from 2012 to 2018: gender, war and conflict in Africa, and national security framework. He also lectured and supervised dissertations for KAIPTC’s PhD course in international conflict management.

He has supervised and examined over 30 dissertations for the various Master’s courses at KAIPTC. He led the development of the MSc in defence and international politics for the GAFCSC in 2014.

For the Staff College’s MSc degree, he now teaches courses on theory and analysis of defence and peace operations in contemporary perspective. He has supervised and examined over 60 MSc dissertations in defence and international politics at GAFCSC. He is currently an adjunct lecturer for a Master’s course in peace, security and intelligence studies at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), having been appointed the sole consultant to develop the PhD course in international security and intelligence for UPSA in 2020.

General Kotia was a consultant for the Constitution Review Commission of Ghana and also served as a member of the panel of experts which drafted the National Peace Council Bill of Ghana (Act 818). He was a consultant and the sole resource expert for the establishment of the Ghana Police Command and Staff College (GPCSC) in 2014.

He chaired the technical working groups on developing a national security strategy for Ghana (2018-20) and on the National Framework for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Terrorism in Ghana (2019). He has been a member of the governing board of the GPCSC, the advisory board of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ghana (2017-19) and the board of directors of Ghana’s E-crime Bureau (2015-19). He has been a regular facilitator to the Parliament of Ghana for orientation workshops for MPs on national security perspectives since 2013.

General Kotia has a number of published papers/articles to his credit. These include: The Unwinding of UN Peace Operations in Africa, The Principle and Reality of Legislative Oversight in Defence Matters in Liberal Democracies, Understanding the Geopolitics of the War in Southern Lebanon: the Global Effects of the 33-Day War in Lebanon, Gender and Conflicts in Africa: Gains and Losses, Liberia: History of the Origins of War and Profile of Actors, Military Professionalism in Peacekeeping, An Evolving Security Dilemma: Adopting a Comprehensive Approach to the Changing Dynamics of Terrorism in Africa and Emerging Security Issues in Africa. He was the main reviewer of the book Indigenous African Warfare by Colonel Festus Aboagye (retired).

Kotia is the author of Ghana Armed Forces in Lebanon and Liberia Peace Operations, published by Lexington Books of the United States in 2015. It has been adopted for use as a textbook by the University of Bedfordshire, the GAFCSC and UPSA in the running of their postgraduate courses.

Kotia is a visiting lecturer/facilitator for many institutions and universities in and outside Ghana, notably the Ghana Police Command and Staff College, the University of Professional Studies Accra, the University of Bedfordshire in the UK, Kennesaw State University in the United States and the United States Military Academy at West Point. His areas of research interest are defence, international/national security and international politics.

Wilberforce Asare

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