Soldiers planted explosives in a house - Witness

Tamale (Northern Region) - Alhassan Iddrisu, a Welder, on Thursday told the National Reconciliation Commission that in 1979 soldiers planted explosives in the four-corners of his father's house and detonated them destroying the front wing of the building.

He said the soldiers, who had accused his father of hoarding cement, searched the house and found 45 bags of cement, which his father had intended to use to undertake extension work on the building. The soldiers, however, sold the cement to the public and took away the proceeds.

The Petitioner said members of the family had to squeeze themselves into the other half of the building since the front wing was destroyed.

He said his father later wrote a letter to a member of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) to grant permission to the family to rebuild the house, adding that but at that time, the government was constructing a dual-carriage road in Tamale, which affected the house again.

He said the family received two million cedis as compensation and a parcel of land, on which they managed to build to the window level. However, he said, the Director of the then Northern Regional Lands Commission mobilized some "macho men" to destroy the building at Moshe Zongo and no compensation was paid to the family.

The Witness said: "My Lord, because our house had been demolished we are now like guinea fowls without a home and we cannot, therefore, perform any social functions such as funeral and outdooring."

Madam Mariama Shaibu, a Head-Dye Seller, said soldiers shot her son through the eye killing him instantly during the 1982 Tamale Market fire outbreak.

She said two bags of head-dye and spices that were in her shop also got burnt in the fire and pleaded with the Commission for compensation to enable her to educate her seven children. Hajia Rahaman Amadu, now unemployed, said she was a wholesaler, dealing in assorted soaps in the Tamale old market.

She recounted that in 1982 soldiers met her on her way to the mosque and questioned her whether she had goods in her house and she responded in the affirmative. She said the soldiers took her to the house on their vehicle and packed all the cartons of soap that were kept in there.

She said she was made to sit on top of the soap and was driven to the Aboabo Market where they sold the items to the public at "control price".

Hajia Amadu said: "My Lord, in an attempt by one of the soldiers to open one of the cartons of soap with a knife, the weapon pierced through the carton and stabbed me in the thigh and I bled profusely".

She said she was later sent to the Kamina Barracks in Tamale where she was shaved and given military drill and molested. "My Lord, I was beaten till I became unconscious and had to be rushed to the Tamale Regional Hospital where I was admitted for one week."

Asked how much her goods were worth, Hajia Amadu told the Commission that she could not assess the value.