Did The Ghana Police Say They Were Investigation The Mass Rape Story?

Several questions started jumping on my mind begging for answers when I woke up this morning to read that, the Yutong vehicle also known as Amina’s vehicle which is the subject of a mass rape of passengers was involved in a head-on-collision accident with a Burkina Faso bound truck in the Brong-Ahafo region on 3rd November 2010 living five people dead as of the time of typing this article with several others in very critical conditions.

I asked myself: why should the driver and the vehicle which is the subject of “thorough” police investigations end up on the road again and even killing people when investigations were still underway? Why should Amina Mohammed be refused bail when she appeared in court yesterday with the excuse that, she could interfere with the investigations of the police whilst the driver of the vehicle under investigations was not seen to be a potential person who could also interfere with same investigations?

There are too many questions that the police must answer coherently: Why is the mass rape vehicle allowed to be on the road so soon while Amina is off road in prison custody? If the Ghana Police said they were conducting investigations into the armed-robbery on the bus: why was the bus not impounded for forensic investigations even when the driver drove to the Ejisu Police station to make a report of attack on it but left to go and kill people this time around?

The police must stop giving us lessons on investigations and come to terms with basic common sense. I am not saying that the mass rape story is true or false. What I am saying is that, the Ghana police service is not acting professionally on this occasion. It is totally wrong in all shapes and forms for the police to declare a case as a hoax even before talking to witnesses and even when they spoke to Amina a witness, they treated her in a way that made it difficult for further witnesses to come out to help them investigate the case.

It is a bad day for Ghana that the Police are seriously working to authenticate that, the story of mass rape was false than they were working to even apprehend the armed-robbers. One fact that has come out clearly according to some of the passengers and even the Ghana Police is that: The vehicle was shot at and its windscreen damaged and the driver managed to escape to the Ejisu police station to make a report.

The questions to ask the Ghana police without even talking of the veracity or otherwise of the mass rape are: What type of gun was used to shot at the vehicle? Where was the gun purchased? Are the armed-robbers Ghanaians, foreigners or both? What types of bullets were used? Aside what we have been told to the effect that the mass rape did not take place. Has forensic investigations on the said vehicle proved otherwise?

The Ghana Police Service kept on singing that, they were practicing “democratic policing” yet they have difficulty with the definition of “democratic freedom of expression” which I am doing by raising the issues I am raising now as a Ghanaian! The Ghana Police must be told that if they want us to be their friends they must stop intimidating and threatening us. It is civilians who join police and the same police will tomorrow join the civilians in the various communities of Ghana to face these same issues. If they do professional policing now, they are not only doing it for Ghanaians but also for themselves. They must tolerate our views no matter how unpleasant those views stand to be on occasions like this. We are only helping them with these questions!

The truth is that, they are questions to be asked- which we must ask and which we are asking! So Ghana Police Service: why was Amina denied bail and the driver and vehicle which are the subject of investigations end up on the road killing more people?

Akilu Sayibu UK

E-mail: Akilu.sayibu@live.uwe.ac.uk