The Anlo Youth Council has called on the government to reconsider the closure of the country’s borders, especially, the Eastern border with Togo to allow stranded Voltarians to return home to participate in the ongoing voter registration exercise.
The Council has also asked the government to withdraw the joint deployment of the Armed Forces and the Military Service along the country’s border in its Eastern part.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra last week, at the Ghana International Press Centre in Accra, the Executive Secretary of the Council, Mr Philip Kwasi Banini said that, the military force had been maltreating and frightening citizens in the Volta and Oti regions, respectively.
“We are under siege in many towns and villages, particularly Ketu South Municipality, where a military lockdown has been ordered in the name of COVID-19, quite in contrast to other parts of Ghana,” he said.
Mr Banini further stated that, the situation had led to the denial of Voltarians along the Ghana-Togo enclave access to livelihood.
“Our people’s access to clean water, health care, markets, and cultural relations have been severely curtailed by the Ghana Armed Forces and the Immigration Service, all because we straddle the border with our neighbours to the East,” Mr Banini stated.
To this effect the Council had admonished the government to withdraw the military force in the Volta Region, whom they say have been intimidating the people in the region with respect to the ongoing registration exercise.
“We take exception to the deployment of the military force in our communities that is simply brutalising and intimidating innocent and unarmed citizens whose only crime is to have been born Togolanders and in that part of Ghana called Volta and Oti regions.”
“We therefore join our chiefs, traditional leaders and well-meaning Ghanaians to call for their immediate withdrawal from our communities and without pre-condition,” he added.
In addition, the Council has expressed their disappointment over what they describe as “ethnic hatred” by all arms of government against the people in the Volta Region.
They also voiced out their displeasure over comments made by the Member of Parliament, Kobina Tahir Hammond, who openly said on Joy News that, they were not Ghanaians, which they say, had not received any condemnation by the President.
“This open admission of ethnocentric and bigotry has received not even a comment, much less, condemnation from our self-proclaimed Human Rights lawyer and President of the Republic much like many other such statements and actions in the recent past,” Mr Banini complained.
BY FRANCIS NTOW
