GMM calls for the protection of its property

Kumasi, Dec. 7, GNA - The Ghana Muslim Mission (GMM) has called on the police to step up security patrols at the Islamic Primary, Junior and Senior Secondary Schools at Abrepo in Kumasi to avert a possible bloody clash between the Mission and supporters of one Sheik Adam Mohammed Appeadu over the ownership of the schools.

The Mission said, the said schools and the King Khalid Mosque were their bone fide properties and will therefore not allow any encroachment whatsoever on the land on which these properties are. The call was made against the backdrop of a Supreme Court's ruling in favour of the Mission as the rightful owners of the said properties, which had been the subject of litigation since 1984 between the Mission and Sheik Appeadu.

Addressing a press conference in Kumasi on Tuesday, Alhaji Musah Kofi Nuamah, National Deputy Secretary of the Mission, said after the court's ruling in July this year, aggrieved supporters of Sheik Appeadu had constantly disrupted academic activities at the schools.

"Since the Mission took possession of the schools, Sheik Appeadu and his supporters have made it impossible to enforce the ruling". He said anytime that members of the Mission enter the school premises to transact business they were chased out by hired 'machomen'. Alhaji Nuamah alleged for instance that, when members of the Mission attempted to pray in the school on October 14, Sheik Appeadu and his supporters sent in hired 'machomen' to disrupt the planned prayers. "Sheilk Appeadu's men attacked members of the Mission again on December 2, when they undertook a clean-up exercise in the school at which one Mohammed Boafo sustained gunshot wounds".

The attackers also hit one Lukeman Bonsu with a cutlass and damaged the Mission's address system, he added.

Whilst calling on sheik Appeadu and his supporters to respect the laws of the country by exhibiting the qualities of believing Muslims to avoid bloodshed, Alhaji Nuamah urged the police to be proactive in protecting lives and property in the school.

He said the Mission was becoming worried that in spite of several pleas to the police to mount surveillance at the school to ensure effective teaching and learning, little was being done to achieve this objective.