Confusion rocks Akanu Border Post as smuggler mysteriously crosses border into Togo

Correspondence from Volta Region:

Officers of the Ghana Immigration Service, Customs and Preventive Service, and those of Togo security agencies stationed at the Akanu border post were left in complete shock as a notorious smuggler successfully crossed the border from Ghana into Togo at their full glare.

The mysterious incident happened before 8 am, Friday, May 29, 2020, with residents finding it difficult to understand the whole incident.

The smuggler who was carrying two sacks of clothes on a motorbike given a hot chase when detected by a Customs officer on duty.

According to eyewitnesses who saw the chase when it unfolded at Dzodze in the Ketu North Municipality, the motor rider gave a warning to the Customs officer not to follow him. The officer in defiance of the smuggler’s warning decided to chase him with the sole aim of arresting him.

The chase, however, continued to the Akanu border where the smuggler unsuccessfully made his first attempt to cross into neighboring Togo in the presence of uniformed officers of both Ghana and Togo.

The smuggler then returned to the Dzodze Township with the Customs officer still pursuing him. At this time, a Police officer from the Dzodze division joined the Custom officer in the chase.

After he [smuggler] roamed the Dzodze Township with the officers, he headed back to the border post at top speed for the second attempt which became successful despite officer’s combined efforts to bring him down.

The second attempt was made with the help of more than twenty other commercial motor riders who escorted him in order to hamper the security officers' motive of arresting him.

A woman who was on her farm close to the border told GhanaWeb reporter that the smuggler was riding his motor bike carelessly in a way that deterred the officers from getting closer to him as they fear they might be hit.

Persons who witnessed the whole incident, however, attributed the successful crossing by the smuggler with the two sacks of cloths on his motorbike to juju; adding that they believed strongly that the smuggler used juju.

An immigration officer who was standing by a bridge a few meters away from the border post also reiterated that he could not understand the whole incident that had just transpired right before his eyes.

“He is dead when we catch him”, a Togolese Customs officer who was passing by was quoted as saying angrily.