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13.05.2008 Regional News

Anlos Say They Need Peace

13.05.2008 LISTEN
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Nana Obiri Boahene, Minister of State at the Ministry of the Interior yesterday said, government was committed to ensuring peaceful co-existence among citizens to facilitate national development.

He said this could only be achieved when the citizenry took up the right channel in settling grievances rather than acts that hampered the stability and socio-economic improvement of a particular community.

Mr Boahene said this when he received a petition from the Anlo Youth Council calling on him to intervene in the shootings and the bloodshed in the area for over a year now.

The Minister said, Ghana needed everybody in its development agenda and called on self-styled chiefs who were fomenting troubles in the area to put a stop to their behaviour, as this was not helping the local community, adding, Kingmakers should tread consciously .

Mr Kenneth Kpedor, Vice President of the Council who handed the petition to the Minister said carrying of guns was banned yet gun shots were still being heard in the area and urged government to arrest and prosecute those involved in these acts.

He said the perpetrators, were the 'old known thugs who have been terrorizing the people of Anloga and its environs with tacit police support for some time now .

He said during the night of April 12, this year, a barrage of gun-shots were heard in Anloga which the executives of the council were witnesses.

In the light of this, Anlo Youth Council, through its able President quickly convened a meeting at which it was decided that a symbolic banner should be presented to the Interior Minister .

The petition called on the Minister to discharge his constitutional mandate of making sure that guns in Anloga and its environs were retrieved from the known drug addicts and thugs.

Anlo Youth Council would wish to state emphatically that the people of Anloga are peace-loving people who have resolved to resist the temptation of taking the law into their own hands in the face of these grave provocations.'

The petition called on the Serious Fraud Office to investigate the five billion cedis expenditure on security in the area since November 1, 2007 and called on journalists not to impute factionalism into the issue.

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