May 3, Shooting in Anloga

Following the events of Black Thursday, November 1, 2007, and series of events that culminated, yet again, in another shooting and blood letting in Anloga, Anlo Youth Council condemns the police unreservedly for their biased handling of events before, during and after Thursday, November 1, 2007 and May 3, 2008. Coming events, they say, long cast their shadows! It would be recalled that Thursday, January 30, 2008 and January 31, 2008, gun-shots were heard incessantly in Anloga whiles the ban on the carrying of firearms was still in force in the area. A report was made to the police based on which a Press Statement was issued by Anlo Youth Council urging government to arrest and prosecute those involved in the shooting.

Surprisingly, the Keta Municipal Chief Executive, Mr. Edward Kofi Ahiabor issued a statement claiming there was no threat to the fragile peace we have created which was prevailing in Anloga.

Closely following this event was a planned protest by the people of Anloga in March, 2008 to register their lack of confidence in the police and the structurally biased manner in which government has handled issues till then. As expected, the Regional Commander of Police in the Volta Region, DOCP Bernar Guyiri Dery intervened and dissuaded the people from that action with a promise to address the issues raised by the people of Anloga.

Again, on the night of April 12, 2008, the night the fallen heroes of November 1, 2008 were interred, a barrage of gun-shots was heard in Anloga. This time some executive members of Anlo Youth Council were still in Anloga and witnessed the incident. In the light of this, Anlo Youth Council, through its President quickly convened a meeting at which it was decided that a ‘symbolic banner’ be presented to the Interior Minister tasking him, as a representative of the Kufour Administration, to discharge his constitutional mandate of making sure that guns in Anloga and its environs are retrieved from the known thugs.

Surprisingly, when the notice for the presentation of the banner was presented to the Greater Accra Regional Police Commander, on Friday, May 2, 2008, he also insisted that the gun-shots did not pose any threat to the fragile peace prevailing at Anloga prior to Saturday, May 3, 2008. ‘When the people go to the farm, they also carry guns for hunting,’ he intimated. This led to an argument between him and the Council’s Secretary, as the Secretary tried to educate him on Anloga and its environs, a Ramsar Site, which do not have resources for game and hunting not even as a pastime activity let alone for a livelihood

But as providence was to vindicate Anlo Youth Council, in less than twenty-four hours, the guns boomed again and not at any animals but human beings. The perpetrators the old known thugs who have been terrorizing the people of Anloga and its environs with tacit Police support for some time now. Anlo Youth Council would wish to state emphatically that the people of Anloga are peace-loving people whose resolve to resist the temptation of taking the law into their own hands in the face of these grave provocations only demonstrates their law-abiding nature. It is why they would tolerate and allow Nyonyo for so long but that should not in anyway be mistaken for their defenselessness.

The public should, once again, be reminded that the Anlo State is a state built on truth, honesty, fairness and above all freedom and justice. It is our aversion for tyranny and oppression that led us to migrate from Notsie under Agorkoli to our current place.

The current shootings are a clear testament that the government, through its security operatives-the BNI, National Security and the Police can longer be trusted by the people of Anloga to secure life and property.

It is becoming clearer that the turmoil has provided a fertile ground for the MCE, Kofi Ahiabor, DCOP Dery and his cohorts to rake in thousands of Ghana cedis, it is for this reason that peace in Anloga is not in their interest. Insecurity is their business and blood letting their stock in the trade. How can Ahiabor and his associates justify the security expenditure of the Keta Municipal Assembly which stands at 5 billion cedis according to the Daily Graphic, especially when all expenses with regards to the payment of hospital bills of those who were hospitalized after the incidents, feeding of refugees and displaced persons who evacuated the town, repatriation of ‘refugees’, providing for the families of the deceased and the burial of the fallen heroes, were all borne by Anlo Youth Council, Anlos in the Diaspora and the Chiefs and the Clan Heads. Were the bullets which were used in killing and maiming Anlos on November 1, 2007 produced from diamonds?

The Saturday, May 3, 2008 incident is a clear case against the state in which the state must prosecute. In craving the indulgence of the Keta Circuit Court, not to be held for contempt, the charges should have read attempted murder and should include intention to kill, preparation to commit grievous crime, abetment and conspiracy, threat to life, threat to security of the State, threat to peace among many others. But here again, the charges have been watered down with the thugs being charged with illegal possession of arms and rioting.

All this does not surprise us any longer, especially when Dery has become a prosecutor, a judge and a lawyer all at the same time, defending these thugs at every twist and turn. If Dery is able to inform us that only two guns were seized from the thugs and those guns were licensed, then he should as well inform us about who procured the arms and for what purpose? Where and when the guns were licensed? Who transported the arms to Anloga and from where and when? And, finally, who used the guns on that fateful day? The fact is that four thugs were seen brandishing four guns which they shot indiscriminately to scare the people until they hit two people causing grievous bodily harm of life threatening magnitude.

We have seen in our recent judicial history that government and the state have returned to the drawing board in prosecuting certain cases by amending the charges.

We are therefore calling on the Interior Minister to act without delay to find a State Prosecutor who will prosecute this case rather than leaving it in the hands of the biased police, who themselves are culpable and liable for the charge of abetment, negligence and gross dereliction of duty. We further call on the Seriuos Fraud Office to move to the Keta Municipal Assembly to investigate their expenditure of 5 Billion Cedis on security of the area since November 1, 2007. Ill-informed journalist who are going around portraying the Anlo issue in the light of events in Bawku and trying very hard to impute factionalism into it, should desist from doing so and rather take time to understand the issues involved. Indeed, there are no factions in this dispute. It is a brazen government support for Francis Nyonyo Atitsogbu Agboada and his thugs who have held Anlo hostage for a long time. Jeffrey Sach, the celebrated academic and development expert and the brain behind the United Nation Millennium Development Goals, in his keynote address for the 2007 Reith Lectures declared ‘almost all governments lie and lie relentlessly. Yet governments can be made to lie less frequently by being exposed and held to account by the professional media.’ But in Ghana, embolden by a propagandist media with massaged editorials, a trigger-happy government has created the condition in Anlo for its own political exploitations. Mr. Honorable Minister of Interior, this is the last call, we do not want to hear any gunshots in Anloga again, and if we do, your job may no longer be comfortable enough for you to ignore Anlo. We think enough is enough and the quicker the government moved to meet the demands in this release, the better it will be for us all. Thank you all for your attention.

Anlo Youth Council

PS: Anlo Youth Council on Monday, May 12, 2008 embarked on a ‘media tour’ which started from Radio Gold at 8 a.m. to highlight the issues involved in the May 3 shootings in Anloga. Graphic, Citi FM, Joy FM, GBC, TV3 were all visited before finally arriving at the Interior Ministry to present a ‘symbolic banner’ to the Minister of State at the Interior Ministry, Mr. Obiri Boahen.

Mayor Agbleze President

Mr. Ken Kpedor Vice President

P.Y. Tsikata Secretary Kodzo Chapman Publicity Etse Tamakloe, Organizer Extraordinaire Selorm Nutakor Vice Organizer And the Ghana News Agency reporter.