A Ghanaian security officer stationed along the border with Burkina Faso told the BBC that the jihadists often crossed over to regroup when under pressure from Burkina Faso’s military – and they also used the country to smuggle weapons, food and fuel.

“It’s not safe for Ghana. They hide in towns like Pusiga. Residents of border communities are worried because there’s no tight security,” he added.

In a report released in July, external, the Netherlands Institute of International Relations think-tank said the “absence of real attacks on Ghanaian soil seems to result from JNIM’s calculus of not disturbing supply lines and places of rest as well as not provoking a relatively strong army”.

“Examples of people who are spared by JNIM by showing their Ghanaian identity cards fits this reading,” it added.

Most Ghanaians are Christians, but the population near the border with Burkina Faso is mainly Muslim – and parts of the region have also been riven with ethnic tensions, raising fears that the jihadists could exploit them to their advantage.

The think-tank said that JNIM had attempted in a “very small number” of instances to recruit or incite Ghana’s small, largely Muslim Fulani community to carry out attacks.

JNIM claimed that they were marginalised, but its recruitment efforts had “minimal success” as the Fulani were “aware of the chaos that has enveloped the Sahel due to familial networks” and did not want it to occur in Ghana, the think-tank added.

A Fulani Muslim preacher in Burkina Faso, Amadou Koufa, is the co-founder of JNIM and is its second-in-command. He recruits most of his fighters from the Fulani community in Burkina Faso.

The military has been accused by rights groups of retaliating by stigmatising Fulanis, and carrying out indiscriminate attacks on their villages in Burkina Faso.

In 2022, a France-based NGO, Promediation, said its research showed that the jihadists had recruited between 200 and 300 young Ghanaians.

Although some were operating in insurgency-hit countries like Burkina Faso, others had been sent back to their villages in northern Ghana to preach their “radical faith”, it added.

This could eventually lead to the jihadists gaining “a sustainable foothold in remote and peripheral areas in the north”, the NGO said.

Since 2022, Ghana has been at the forefront of efforts to create a new Western-backed, 10,000-strong regional force to combat the Islamist insurgency.

Tamale – the biggest city in northern Ghana – is supposed to be the force’s headquarters.

However, the headquarters has not yet opened, and the fate of the initiative is unclear after the region split between pro-Western and pro-Russian states.

Burkina Faso – along with Mali and Niger – have pivoted towards Russia. The three countries have formed their own alliance to fight the insurgents, and have also relied on help from Russian mercenaries.

Ghana and other regional states have remained allied with the West.

Ghana’s military has established bases in the north, but newly installed border surveillance equipment was not yet working, the security officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC.

However, more troops have been sent since JNIM carried out two attacks, late last month and earlier this month, on the Burkina Faso side of the border, the officer added.

Ghana’s government did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

However, its ambassador to Burkina Faso, Boniface Gambila Adagbila, told the BBC the two countries were helping each other to fight the insurgents, warning that if Burkina Faso fails “Ghana may likely to be the next place”.

Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) party – which will form the next government after winning elections on 7 December – promised in its campaign manifesto to “enhance” border security with “international partners”, as well as improve the country’s intelligence capabilities.

In August 2023, the European Union announced that as part of a 20m euro ($21.6m; £16.6m) aid package it would supply Ghana with about 100 armoured vehicles, as well as surveillance equipment such as drones.

Many civilians and refugees cross the Ghana-Burkina Faso border through footpaths and back roads to work, trade or visit relatives despite the security risk – and James said he was one of them. He was travelling all the way to Senegal on his motorbike when he was taken captive.