KMA Boss incriminated in assault case

THE KUMASI police are investigating allegations of assault and battery of three persons by aides of the Kumasi mayor, Mr. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, last Saturday.

For more than 20 minutes traffic was held up as the mayor?s men physically assaulted the victims in the glare view of onlookers.

The victims of this beastial act are Thomas Atobrah Dapaah, driver of VW Golf 3 with registration number AS 7202 Q, Kwame Amoateng, a businesaman and his nurse wife, Helena Kusi Minkah.

The three, according to a police statement, complained that last Saturday, May 18, around 10.00a.m while heading towards Bantama, their car was crossed by the KMA boss?s car, near the Childlren?s Welfare Clinic.

The mayor is said to have come out of his car and instructed ?some drunken hooligans? to force the victims of brutality out of their car, while the engine was still running.

Two more vehicles which followed the mayor?s car also stopped with the occupants joining in the molestation.

Dapaah claimed he was pummeled in the face by three of the thugs, while Amoateng was assaulted by two other men.

The lady was forcibly pulled out of the car by yet another thug, who nearly strangled her.

The three alleged that after the mayor had satisfied himself with the disciplinary action, he ordered them to leave the scene.

The mayor and his group were said to be in mourning cloth and that they were heading to a funeral.

Solicitors of the three persons have served notice to drag the metro chief executive to court for the ?unwarranted assault and battery? at the alleged instance of the mayor.

The notice, dated May 18 and copied to the Regional Director of the Commission on Human Right and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ), Minister for Local Government and the Regional Minister, described the conduct of Jumah as ?wrongful, unacceptable, unlawful and irresponsible.?

According to the solicitors, the victims would assert their rights in law and not let the mayor get away with his unlawful conduct under the guise of officialdom.

Also to be dragged to court are the assailants said to have masqueraded as officers and agents of the law.

The victims admitted they cannot identify their assailants by name, but could point them out if seen since they are most of the time in the company of the mayor.

This assault comes three days after the Ashanti Regional Minister, Hon. S. K. Boafo, on May 15, told journalists that terrorist activities which characterized KMA Task Force were no more because measures were in place to correct and build a new image of the KMA.

Boafo, who was trying to court the co-operation of media practitioners to partner KMA for the development of Kumasi metropolis, assured members of the public not to panic because the reconstituted KMA Task Force would be re-oriented to deal with the public as humans in order to enforce all KMA bye-laws for development.

The Regional Minister stressed that any member of the task force who went out of his way would be sanctioned according to the law.

The mayor could not be reached for his comments at the time of filing the report.

The PRO was also not readily available, as several calls to his office could not link him up.