Kofi Addah
Police in Navrongo in the Upper East Region have launched a manhunt for three persons believed to be part of a gang that rob and terrorize travellers and traders along the Chiana-Navrongo Road in the night.
Over the weekend, the gang attacked one of the vehicles of the Water Resource and Sanitation Minister, Joseph Kofi Adda at Chiana in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region.
The occupants were returning to Navrongo when the incident happened.
The security officer on board the vehicle had knowledge of the presence of gangs and their activities and so prepared for them.
The gang blocked a portion of the road and when the vehicle got to the obstacle, the armed gang members came out of the bush with the sole intention of robbing and molesting the occupants of the vehicle.
The security officer opened fire on them, even before they got close, thereby forcing them to run back into the bush, killing one in the process.
Though the Police in Navrongo are tight-lipped about the matter due to ongoing investigations, a DAILY GUIDE source close to the police said the deceased and the rest of his colleagues are not Fulanis as being speculated.
“That is a wrong information, these are people from the area; they are known people. They have been robbing and terrorizing people on that Chiana-Navrongo stretch for some time now and people are aware of them. People are so quick to accuse others for the wrongdoings; if people living along this road are patriotic, they would have exposed these criminals and everybody would have been free; they know them and live with them. I know that efforts were made to get the criminals, even before this killing happened.”
Since the Buipe and Yepei bridges were closed for maintenance, travellers from the southern part of the country, traveling to the Northern and those from the Northern part and traveling to the South, have had to use alternative routes to get to their destinations.
Those who use the Wa-Tumu Road in the Upper West Region end up joining the Chiana-Navrongo Road, and that is what seems to have created a fertile ground for armed robbers and other bad boys to operate at night and sometimes during the day.
According to the source, the gang has succeeded in robbing and molesting their victims ever since the traffic on that stretch increased due to the closure of the two bridges.
The Water Resources and Sanitation Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Navrongo Central Constituency, Joseph Kofi Adda, had traveled to Navrongo to perform the funeral rites of his late mother over the weekend.
Meanwhile, the lifeless body of the deceased has been deposited at the morgue of the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo.
From EBO BRUCE-QUANSAH, Navrongo