The dead landguard being removed from the site. INSET: The arrested landguards
A SUSPECTED LAND-GUARD was killed on the spot while three others were arrested for opening fire on the police in an attempt to stop a demolition exercise being carried out on the aviation lands located at Adenta in Accra.
The demolition exercise, which started around 6:00am yesterday, was supervised by 60 armed police personnel from the SWAT Unit of the Ghana Police Service.
The 640-acre land is owned by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority which had been authorized to demolish buildings erected by some private developers and squatters.
The Remains of the dead man being conveyed onto a pick-up
The deceased, identified as Adjei Akpor aka Brother, was a member of a 25-member land-guard team allegedly sent to the site by one Ernest Nii Oko Kwei, a supposed chief of the area, to stop the exercise.
The three suspects, Emmanuel Armah, 32, Nii Aryee, 32, and Tijani Osman, 30, have been caged at the Accra Regional Police Headquarters to assist police in their investigations.
Superintendent T. K. Hlormenu, commander-in-charge of the Accra Regional Police Alfa SWAT Unit, who led police officers to the site, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, said the exercise began peacefully around 6:00am yesterday.
Upon getting to the interior part of the 640-acre land, the land-guards, numbering about 25 and wielding guns and machetes, emerged from the bush and attacked three police officers who had then led an excavator to pull down one of the buildings.
The suspects opened fire on the police and when the police returned fire, a bullet hit one of the land-guards, killing him in the process.
The other land-guards fled, but the police managed to arrest three, with a number of machetes retrieved from the arrested persons.
Razed Down
Items retrieved from a chapel on the site after the demolition
In all, about 15 churches, including Perez Chapel, four filling stations, and a number of kiosks, mechanic and furniture shops and some residential apartments were destroyed.
While some of the encroachers were seen running helter-skelter trying to move their belongings to safety as the excavators broke down wooden structures and smashed metal containers, others, including church members were seen wailing uncontrollably.
Mr Baba Mohammed, one of the encroachers, in an interview, said even though they were given notice to vacate the area a year ago, they never expected the demolition to take place anytime soon.
He said the land was sold to them by the chief of Adenta, Nii Oko Kwei years ago; hence they have their indentures covering the purchase of the lands.
?We were made to believe that part of the land belonging to Aviation had been released to the chief by government and so we went ahead to buy them,? he alleged.
Meanwhile, Frank Tackie, Director of The Consortium, said government had awarded the contract to them to build an aviation school, shops and offices.
He noted that work should have commenced six months ago but due to the activities of encroachers, the estimated two-and-a-half-year project had delayed.
Nii Ashie Moore, Member of Parliament for Adenta, who was also at the scene, told reporters that he was upset by the manner in which the exercise was being handled, saying such exercises must be carried out humanely.
?These people who are vacating are the ones who voted us (the NDC) to power,? he added.
Touching on the activities of land-guards in the area, the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, who led a team of police personnel to the scene, said it had come to the notice of the police that some chiefs and estate developers had now recruited land- guards and armed them to protect their lands.
He said the land-guards who carry sophisticated weapons terrorize genuine owners of lands, preventing them from developing their own lands.
DCOP Yohuno said the police would stop at nothing in their efforts to curb illegality in the country.
By Linda Tenyah
