The Armed Robbery Menace in Ghana

: When Will It Be Controlled or Eliminated?

Asks Joe Kingsley Eyiah, Toronto-Canada

He is a proud worker and a loyal friend who works hard for his family and had retired to his bedroom on that dark Saturday night, August 30, 2008 with his wife.

Wofa Yaw, as many associates call him, was unexpectedly attacked in his Asokore-Koforidua home in Ghana by a group of armed robbers. The news came to me and his other associates in far away Canada as piercing poisonous arrows.

That his house was ransacked for about one and half hours by these hood-wearing men who gave warning shots, took away money and personal properties, harassing and slapping both old and young occupants without help coming on time from the Region Police. About ten neighbors of Wofa Yaw, I am told, had made frantic calls to the Police to come to the aid of the victims but help came too late, too little. This leaves me to question the security of innocent hard workers who have become the targets of armed robbers.

The Wofa Yaw story is one of hundreds which occur in Ghana. Others even lose their lives in such vicious attacks. If the Police Service has been refurbished to protect property and citizens in Ghana why the failure to curb the armed robbery menace that confronts the country? If the Police could not quickly come to the aid of armed robbery victims in a regional metropolis what would be the fate of such victims in the districts?

The menace of armed robbery in Ghana is scaring many Ghanaians living abroad from coming to settle back home. This is unfortunate indeed!

We therefore send a clarion call to the government of Ghana to work vigorously with community watch-dog groups to weed out these armed robbers from the neighborhoods where the robbers have been operating. After all, these bad people or their accomplices live in the very neighborhoods.

Joe Kingsley Eyiah (Ph. D. Candidate)

Dept. of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (CTL)

The Ontario Institute of Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

Email: jeyiah@hotmail.com jeyiah@oise.utoronto.ca