Suspects Sherif Abdulai and Mahamuda Lamin
The Upper West Regional Police Command has arrested two men, Sherif Abdulai, 30, and Mahamuda Lamin, 25, in connection with some murder cases recorded in the region since 2021.
The suspects were arrested following investigation into the recent killing of a night security guard.
Speaking with the media, Upper West Regional Police Commander, ACP Francis Yiribaare, said one of the suspects has confessed to killing 15 people.
According to him, the suspect admitted during interrogation that he has killed 15 people in the Wa Municipality since 2021, prior to the recent murder of Yahaya Issah, and confessed that he usually targets watchmen and sometimes mentally challenged persons.
“He confessed that he had killed three mad men and two watchmen at Bole, one mad man in Banda Nkwanta and a mad woman in Bambs, both in the Savannah Region. He carries victims on his shoulder and buries them in bushes unnoticed,” ACP Yiribaare stated.
ACP Yiribaare disclosed that the cases under investigation include some 15 murder cases recorded in the region between 2021 and 2022, and the recent case involving the murder of a watchman, Issah Yahaya, at Wa-Dobile on September 21, 2025.
He explained that in most of these cases, the victims were watchmen who were attacked while on duty, and they were either strangled to death or suffered head injuries from being hit in the head with blocks.
He revealed that following a careful review of the cases and the pattern that seemed consistent in all the cases, the Inspector General of Police, Christian Tettch Yohuno put together a team of intelligence officers and investigators from the National Headquarters and dispatched them to the Upper West Region to work with the regional team.
He disclosed that based on initial forensic analysis and acting on credible intelligence, the police arrested suspect Mahamuda Lamin on October 3, 2025, who led them to the second suspect.
He noted that the second suspect, Sherif Abdulai, an ex-convict who goes by aliases, Saani, Mohammed and Critos, was arrested at Adabiya, a suburb of Wa on Monday, October 6, 2025.
The Upper West Regional Police Commander also disclosed that a search conducted on him led to the retrieval of a Villaon keypad mobile phone and an X-Base solar-powered portable radio. Both items were later positively identified as property of the deceased, Issah Yahaya, and upon interrogations, the suspect claimed that he had bought the phone from a galamsey site in Bole.
The Upper West Regional Police Commander said both suspects are in the custody of the police assisting with investigation, adding that suspect Mahamuda Lamin was put before the Wa Magistrate Court, where he was remanded into police custody to reappear on October 21, 2025.
FROM Eric Kombat, Wa