Why soldiers intervened in a gun battle between police and customs officials at Bawku

Typically, the security services work very well with each other. It’s always some sort of family when they all meet, although in all fairness too, there is the unspoken knowledge of who wields more authority sometimes among them.

It, therefore, was quite troubling to hear and read reports that there was an open-air gunfight between some officials of the Ghana Police Service and officers from the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

But for the intervention of some soldiers from the Ghana Armed Forces, it is believed that the situation would have escalated even further than it did.

Where did all this start from?

Most of the details of this encounter, so far, have come from a video shared by TV3 on X, where it showed moments of this very movie-like scene where gunshots were heard blazing through the air.

In the video which emerged from the Missiga Immigration Service Checkpoint at Bawku, it has emerged that the confrontation erupted from the refusal of one of the services for the other to inspect a vehicle?

Why?

That answer may not be clearly known for now but the narration that has been put out in the public suggests that some policemen had refused to allow the customs officials do their job of inspecting a Togo-bound vehicle.

According to the details, on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, when the said truck reached the Missiga Immigration Service Checkpoint, the customs officials, who had suspicions that the vehicle had smuggled goods, wanted to do their job but the policemen restricted them.

Their suspicion was that the truck was loaded with smuggled cocoa beans.

But the situation got more and more tensed and soon, things escalated fast, with gunshots being fired from both security services.

Military intervention:

Having earlier noticed the tensions building up, some soldiers also stationed at the Missiga Immigration Service Checkpoint are reported to have intervened, with the hope of de-escalating the situation.

Their attempts, as has been seen in the video, did not pay off so well as loud gunshots starting going off.

In a quick dramatic turn of events, the video showed how uniformed officials from the Ghana Police Service, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, and the Ghana Armed Forces, as well as bystanders and other individuals within the catchment area of this chaos, started scrambling for cover.

As it stands now, there have been no reported cases of either injuries or deaths.

No official statements from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, or the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) have been sighted as of the time of going to press.

It is worth noting that Bawku is already a high-security zone because of the longstanding conflicts in the community.

GhanaWeb will update readers on any new updates that come from this incident in subsequent news reports.

There was heavy gunfire this afternoon [ October 9,2024] at the Missiga Immigration Service checkpoint in Bawku after a disagreement ensued between personnel of the Ghana Police Service and Customs.

According to reliable security sources, tempers flared up after some police… pic.twitter.com/EaWlhfiQLA

— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) October 9, 2024

AE