Police Stop Wa Royals Press Confab

In an unusual show of police power, the Nima Police, on Thursday stopped a planned press conference by Royals from Wa, citing violation of public order because the organizers did not seek police clearance prior to the event.

This move clearly angered a section of the public and some chieftains from the Wa traditional area in the Upper West Region who had gathered at the venue of the press conference.

According to sources, the delegation travelled to Accra to inform the media about the pressing security issues bedevilling Wa.

According to the organizers of the press conference, before organizing the press conference, they had made all the necessary checks which indicated that they did not necessarily need police clearance before organizing a press conference.

The media encounter was slated for the Saint Kizito Roman Catholic Church in Nima, but was stopped by the Nima Police who had jurisdiction over the area.

A visibly enraged chieftain from the traditional area, Wa Na Alhaji Issa Siedu II, fumed, “What is going on? We can’t hold a press conference, are we not Ghanaians, and are we not entitled to our rights?”

According to Alhaji Na Abubakari, a sub-chief in Wa who had gone to the Nima police station a few minutes before the press conference to inform the police about the event, he met the divisional commander, ACP Bonga Yoosa, who told him point blank that his delegation did not have the right to organize the planned media encounter. “He said we need to apply to organize a press conference and give them five clear days before the event, because it is going to be a public event,” Alhaji Abubakari complained.

“We are only staging a press conference to let Ghanaians know what is happening to us back at home.

“News doesn’t come out, people don’t know what is happening there,” he said.

Meanwhile, ACP Yoosa has argued that press conferences were public events that needed police clearance. “When you organize a public event, you need police clearance”, ACP Yoosa told DAILY GUIDE when contacted in his office to justify the action of the police in preventing the Wa chieftains from holding the press confab.

“If it is a public event, you need to inform the police. If not, then you have infringed on the law”, ACP Yoosa told DAILY GUIDE.

According to him, the representative from Wa came to him at the 11th hour of the conference to request police presence during the event, but he said he could not have mobilized the requisite men at that particular time, so he asked them to shelve the idea and put in an official request before staging the press conference.

“He knows why he wanted police assistance,” said the police commander.

Apparently, the delegation from Wa, who are representatives of the three royal families (Gates) there, are locked in a bloody chieftaincy tussle with the current chief of Wa, Wa Na Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo, who is incidentally the twin brother of Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Deputy Majority Leader In Parliament.

The seething chieftaincy tussle resulted in the shooting of one person who jumped into the line of fire when an assassin attempted to shoot Wa Na Palpuo.