Soldiers Manhandle Taxi-Driver

Soldiers who were said to be returning from a military training exercise on Saturday, August 28, 2004 tested the level of their capabilities on a poor taxi driver who the irate soldiers described as reckless driver.

The driver, Kwame Yeboah, 25, who drives taxi cab GR 5198 C, this reporter gathered, plies Kwame Nkrumah Circle to Dansoman in Accra.

Narrating his ordeal, Kwame Yeboah said the angry uniformed military personnel who were in a military mini bus and numbered about seven came from the Obetsebi Lamptey Roundabout at the Nkrumah Circle shouted at the poor driver because he was causing public nuisance with the constant tooting of his horn. That incident took place at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle-Neoplan Station traffic light. According to the taxi cab driver, he first blew the horn of his car to prevent a car behind him from entering into the main Circle-Kaneshie road.

All of a sudden, occupants of the military van with registration number 32 GA 71 started raining insults on him, but he refused to be dragged into the fray. The infuriated soldiers however trailed the taxi to the Odaw Bridge near the Circle-Neoplan Station police station where the soldiers attacked the taxi driver and gave him slaps while others pulled him from the steering wheel by force.