Hundreds of residents of Takoradi and its environs, in the Western Region, yesterday demonstrated to demand the dismissal of the Head of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, Minister of State in charge of Security, Bryan Acheampong and the Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery.
The demonstration was also to force the police authorities to sack the police personnel, who allegedly aided the key suspect in the case of the kidnapping of three Takoradi girls, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, to escape from cells at the Takoradi Central Police Station.
They wondered why the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) had failed to arrest one of the CID officers, Ametepey and a former Takoradi District Commander, Chief Superintendent of Police,Peter Ofori Donkor, who they accused of aiding the suspect to break cell but, had been transferred to an unknown location.
It would be recalled that while Udoetuk Wills was standing trial at a Takoradi district court for escaping from lawful custody, he revealed that some police personnel aided him to escape.
The demonstrators, clad in red and black and chanting, “We don’t want bones, we want our girls” marched through the principal streets of Takoradi to the residency of the Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, to present their petition.
They also held placards, some of which read, ‘Still demanding for the girls’, ‘We want the girls, police, up your game’, among others.
The aggrieved demonstrators said that the kidnapped girls were alive and vowed to continue their protests until the security heads resigned or are dismissed.
Later, the angry residents were joined in the demonstration by some relatives of the kidnapped girls.
Recently, at a media briefing, the acting Inspector General of Police, James Oppong-Boanuh, said that DNA tests carried out on the human parts found in the vicinity of the suspected kidnapper’s home at Kansaworodo near Takoradi were that of the four girls, who were kidnapped in Takoradi.
The announcement was expected to bring closure to the more than-one year search for the missing girls, but the issue continued to generate agitations and controversies.
However, John Entsie, told journalists that the alleged human remains on which the DNA tests were conducted were retrieved from a location within a community which used to be a cemetery.
Etsie, who is the Convener of Western Youth for Justice, organisers of the demonstrations, lamented that the police retrieved the remains of the girls without prior notices to the affected families, chief of the area or the Assembly Member.
He called for security protection for the people of Sekondi-Takoradi and Western Region, since the discovery of oil in the metropolis, had necessitated the increase of immigrants.
Michael Hayford Grant, spokesperson for the families of the kidnapped girls, expressed worry that the police failed to give ‘hard copies’ of the DNA results of the human remains to the family members of the four missing girls, and requested that the acting IGP furnished them with copies of the DNA results.
FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, TAKORADI
