Residents living in Okpoi Gono and its adjoining communities in the Ledzokuku-Krowor Municipality of the Greater Accra Region have expressed frustration over the growing activities of land guards in the area.
While calling for the government’s intervention in helping to curb the rising wave of land guard activities in the area, the residents stated that the situation is brewing high tension in the community, which results in fear and panic.
According to the victims of the attacks, some of the developers had their structures destroyed by the land guards who claimed to be the legitimate owners of the land, adding that they had secured a court order to carry out their activities.
Other property owners have voiced their complaints about the violence and intimidation these land guards have perpetrated on them, some of whom have allegedly broken into homes with the assistance of police officers and soldiers.
One of the victims disclosed that there have been several reported cases to the Okpoi Gono Police Station, and the Land Commission in connection with the activities of these land guards, but their efforts have proved futile.
A resident who has been living in the area for nearly three decades revealed that his house was locked up by these recalcitrant land guards.
“About two months ago, some police officers and the land guards came to the house and said that they had won possession at the court, so we should quit the resident. I then asked for the court order, but they didn’t provide it, I also asked for the sermon, and they wrote a number on the wall to call; we called in front of them and the number couldn’t go through. ”
“They later locked the main gate. I chased them to come and open it because there are tenants, and my aged father, who always needs medical attention, also lives in the house. That was all that happened, and they moved to other houses,” a resident narrated.
The resident said that after this incident, the land guards returned in the company of alleged ununiformed military officers and destroyed properties. “So on the 3rd of September, when all of us had travelled to the village, they came and demolished the new fence wall when the masons were working.”
They pointed out that the inaction of the police to arrest and prosecute these recalcitrant land guards, raised a lot of questions, leaving one to feel that the police were compromising their mandate.
There have been a series of land-guard incidents in Okpoi Gono and its environs, which have painted a bad picture of the region to the rest of the country. The residents have therefore appealed to the law enforcement agencies to flush out the persistent activities of land guards in the country.
Source: 3news.com
