I Also Want to Know

Missing KUMACA Weapons Found

We were all perplexed a couple of months ago, when what seemed like a mysterious epidemic that shortly turned out to be a deadly strain of the influenza virus – or H1N1 – struck the campus of the Kumasi Academy Senior High School, popularly known as KUMACA. At least I was, especially as the virus was reported to have spread to other areas of the country, outside the Asante regional capital. Well, now KUMACA is once again in the news headlines. This time, though, it is not about the deadly virus that reportedly took the lives of some half-dozen students. But it is about a deadly phenomenon, nonetheless.

Well, we are told that the storekeeper of the school and three other persons are in the custody of the Asokore-Mampong police, charged with stealing two shotguns and one pump-action gun belonging to the school (See “Four Arrested Over Missing KUMACA Guns” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 1/19/18). As of this press preparation, it had been reported that the weapons had been found near an abandoned toilet building on the campus of the school. “A Good Samaritan,” we are told, had tipped off the police. Forensic investigations are, however, ongoing to ascertain who removed the weapons, found in a sack, from the school’s storage facility.

What is on the lips of anybody who learns about this incident is as follows: “How did KUMACA come into possession of such deadly weapons?” and “Who really owns these guns?” We are not told of any security problems at the school, or the fact of whether the school lacks the services of a night watchman, something that virtually every boarding, and even day, school in the country has. We are told that the aforesaid weapon went missing after the storekeeper, whose name was not provided in the news reports, took a leave of absence and left the store in the care of a carpenter and some two other workers. It was not clear, as of this writing, whether the carpenter and the two others being held by the police were also employees of the school.

We have just been told, as of this press preparation, and according to the principal or headmaster of the school, that in the past there had been a security guard or two, who have since retired from the employ of the school, who had been trained in weaponry and had use of these guns. And so why are these weapons still being kept in storage at the school? And how were these weapons acquired, in the first place? Whatever the outcome of police investigations, the public has a right to know how KUMACA came into possession of these deadly weapons, and also how long they had been in storage at the school before somebody attempted to make away with them.

For this is definitely a public-safety issue at a state-owned and operated school. These are questions that may obviously be best answered by the headmaster. And they are very significant questions because this discovery comes at a time that our national security experts and agencies have been complaining about the rampant and ready availability of guns in our society, and at the same time that the rate of criminal activities in the country is perceived to have significantly risen. We are also not given the name and identity of the person who had contacted the police and caused the arrest of the criminal suspects. And to be certain, we don’t even know whether the suspects involved can really be characterized or categorized as criminal suspects, since we don’t even know that these weapons had been legally acquired and were being legally kept in storage at the school.

Then also, we don’t know whether these weapons have ever been used in the commission of a crime or even used at all. These are questions that the public will be seeking to find answers to as the case further develops or proceeds to court for prosecution, or even the lack thereof.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
January 19, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]