Police hunt for Legon student

A circuit court in Accra on Wednesday issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Akyena Brantuo, a former Junior JCR President of the Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana.

He is wanted as one of key suspects in the issuing of threats to the Vice-Chancellor of the University and some lecturers over the new accommodation policy that a section of the students oppose.

According to The Ghanaian Times newspaper, the search for Brantuo follows a major breakthrough by the police in their hunt for those behind the threats.

The Director-General of the Police Criminal Investigations Department, DCOP David Asante Apeatu told the Times that with the help of cyber experts, the police were able to download threat letters purported to have been typed on Brantuo's computer.

And sensing that the police would arrest him, Brantuo failed to turn up on Wednesday to write his examinations.

DCOP Apeatu said the letter titled "Operation BHABOTOLD", from the Militant African Youth Against Neo-colonialist (MAYAN) read: "Your silence on a sensitive issue as the proposed in-out residential policy has only made you an ally to the Vice-Chancellor's imperialist bull.

"We have categorically stated that the content of the policy, its timing and modus operandi are all with sinister motive. "Quality university education goes beyond writing examinations, but that is what you are bent on doing, despite our calls for a general boycott until that neo-colonialist policy is withdrawn outright.

"For this reason, you/your family have become targets for "Operation Bhabotold.”

The Police had earlier retrieved some documents suggested to be containing threats from Lord Hammah's Personal Computer.

Hammah was a former resident of the Commonwealth Hall who voluntarily withdrew from the university following controversies surrounding his candidature for President of the SRC last year.

DCOP Asante Apeatu said the police were doing everything in their power to track down the perpetrators.

The Times said its investigations yielded another threat letter addressed to the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG)by the group and signed with blood by someone named Obrafua.

It read in part: “We have been bewildered by the dead silence of your association with respect to the calamitous residential policy of C.N.B. Tagoe's administration.

“We have been convinced beyond doubt that the Tagoe POLICY is not only inimical to the already poor students, but a calculated attempt to entrench neocolonialism practice in Ghana.

“The colonialist denied the Ghanaian quality comprehensive education, which forms the bedrock of ever sound socio-economic development while leaders like Dr. Nkrumah strived to make education more functional and easily accessible to the poor Ghanaian, a policy that most of your members are direct beneficiaries. Today UTAG looks on rather unconcerned while an imperialist stooge and a visionless Vice Chancellor confronted with challenge chooses the already poor students as scapegoats.”

“Please be reminded and warned that we shall carry out this threat with the same religiousness that sent seven (7,000) students to the castle last Thursday.”