The Police definitely need to pick up the Executive Director of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) at Tafo, Dr. Frank Amoah and others for questioning after an attempt by some of the workers at the Institute’s Wantram cocoa plantation to murder Wahab Amadu, also of the institute transferred there from Tafo.
The Executive Director, facing allegations of stealing and mismanagement of the affairs of CRIG last week gave Wahab Amadu, a security officer at the Tafo centre of the institute, just 24 hours to relocate to the plantation at Wantram to work there as a labourer.
Wahab, a vociferous NDC activist had come under strong suspicion by Dr. Frank Amoah as the ‘Daily Post’s informant at CRIG after the newspaper published stories of how fertilizers meant for cocoa farmers were being diverted, fertilizer machines being stolen as well as the stealing of wood from the institute’s plantations. The Executive Director had been fingered as being at the centre of most of these allegations.
The sudden transfer of Wahab was seen by workers of the institute as punishment and also as a way of getting him out of the way so that wood that the Executive Director had stashed in his two garages can be removed and hidden before security agents storm there to find out that the allegation is true.
Less than twenty-four hours after he arrived at Wantram, Waham was lured by a driver at the Wantram plantation working for CRIG into his house where he was nearly murdered.
Wahab Amadu arrived at the plantation on Tuesday, May 27, 2014 only to be told that there was no accommodation for him. He had to make the two-hour journey on foot to Wassa Akropong where he checked into a guest house.
Then next day, Wednesday, May 28, he reported back to the plantation. In the evening, Oteng, a driver who Wahab knew from Tafo offered him the opportunity to spend the night with him in his room on the condition that he would not tell anybody where he was sleeping.
Oteng made Wahab to swear that he has not told anybody where he would spend the night. But before they went to bed, Oteng brought in another man he said would sleep with them.
Later, before they went to bed, Oteng gave Wahab a big cloth and asked him to cover his entire body, including his head with it to avoid the mosquitoes. But Wahab declined to do so with the excuse that the room was hot. Later, while they were all asleep, Wahab, who began to be suspicious but pretended to be asleep saw Oteng wake up quietly and tip-toe to the window which he opened and left ajar. Then he crawled back and began to quietly tap the other man to wake up. Wahab then woke up and said he wanted to urinate. To his surprise, Oteng said it was too late so he should wait till morning.
Wahab, who called the editor of the Daily Post at about 1:20 am said it was then that he decided to call the editor and tell him where he was because it dawned on him that Oteng asked him not to tell anyone about where he was spending the night because they wanted to kill him.
The Daily Post’s editor, indeed, talked to Wahab who told him where he was sleeping and asked the editor to thank Oteng for him. He then handed the mobile phone to Oteng. The editor then thanked him for offering Wahab accommodation. According to Wahab later on, Oteng was displeased with him for making the call to the editor and telling him where he, Wahab, was spending the night.
“He and the other man, meanwhile, will not let me go out to urinate. I started to struggle with them, insisting that I had to urinate. I finally managed to open the door and went outside. They came with me outside, standing close to me as I urinated. Then I took them by surprise by running for it and screaming for help” Wahab said.
He subsequently called the Daily Post editor some ten minutes after his first call. It was then that he narrated to the editor what had transpired after his first call to him.
Wahab had managed to run into a Senior High School compound and knock on the door of the first bungalow he saw. A man (name withheld for security reasons) came out to see Wahab panting and in tears. The security man told the man some people were after him and pleaded to be given a place to hide. But the man initially refused to help because he did not know Wahab. However, after the man had talked to the editor of the Daily Post who assured him that Wahab was harmless, he took the security officer in to save him.
In the morning, they went to the police station to report the matter to the police who have taken up investigations into the matter. Some of the policemen told Wahab he was lucky to be alive. The vociferous NDC man is back at Old Tafo to make a complaint to the hierarchy of COCOBOD.
Meanwhile, Deep throat sources at CRIG at Tafo say the Executive Director has managed to evacuate the wood from his garage to a safe hiding place.
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