Presence of the military in the Volta Region is causing me sleepless nights – Dzifa Gomashie

The Parliamentary candidate of the NDC in the Ketu South Constituency and a queen-mother in the Aflao Traditional Area, Abla Dzifa Gomashie (Mamma Dzramedo I) has said that the presence of military men at the borders of the Volta region is causing her great distress as the indigenes are subjected to brutality by some of these men.

In an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show, she related: “Yesterday, for example, a young girl about 19 years was walking across to Togo to go to school because people in Togo come to school here and our children also go to school in Togo and for no reason, this gentleman in immigration uniform beat her and her brother because they didn’t say anything to him. She was introduced to us and her family had gone to make a complaint too. So we followed up with the immigration and he didn’t even deny that he beat the girl and the marks were on her”.

According to her, people are harassed even when they decide to go to the markets. “People are coming from the market and the military want to check what is in the bag”, she added.

She admitted that the increase of the military men in the region has caused her “a lot of sleepless nights”. She expressed her disappointment in the Government’s method of curbing the COVID-19 disease by deploying military men to the borders in the region.

She questioned, “If we are saying that we are now going to use guns to stop COVID-19 which is the impression some people want to create, I mean it is laughable, isn’t it? Who combats disease with a gun? Who combats disease with a cane? Who combats disease with the army?”

“If you want to protect our borders from people coming into our country I don’t see why it should be a terrifying situation. It shouldn’t. So these are the concerns that we raised,” she added.

The deployment of military officers at Ketu South has stirred controversy as residents in the Municipality of the Volta region say they are living in fear and panic following the deployment of some heavily armed security personnel into the area.

The opposition NDC has alleged that the government deployed the soldiers as part of an ethnic agenda.