4 Chiefs Arrested

The Techimanhene, Oseadeayo Nana Akumfi Ameyaw IV and six others, including his brother and three other chiefs, have been arrested for their involvement in the kidnapping and assault of the chief of Tuobodom, Nana Asare Baffour II, and his secretary, on March 5, 2010.

“They have all been cautioned and charged with the offences of kidnapping, assault and stealing, and have been released on police enquiry bail,” DCOP Adu Poku, Police CID Director General said.

“Investigations so far have led to the arrest of Prince Yaw Dua, 29, Banabas Atamekye alias Seidu, 31, both guards at the Techimanhene’s palace, and Nana Stephen Akumfi Ameyaw, elder brother of the Techimanhene, who was also the driver of the Ford bus with which the Tuobodom chief was carried to Techiman,” the police chief said.

The rest are his Krontihene, Nana Opoku Abankwa II, Nana Opoku Fosu Gyeabuor, the Mawurehene, and Nana Barima Obeng Ameyaw, the Akyempimhene. They have been granted police enquiry bail and would soon be put before court to face criminal charges.

However, son of the Techiman Omanhene, Abubakar Ameyaw-Akumfi, denied that his father and the chiefs had ever been arrested, warning the police of the consequences of their actions.

According to Abubakar, they were shocked to hear the news about the arrest, pointing out that nobody had been invited by the police.

“We were taken by surprise with the latest development,” he told Citi Fm in Accra yesterday.

Reacting to the latest development on the Techiman-Tuobodom imbroglio, hours after the police released a statement on its investigations, Abubakar Ameyaw-Akumfi said the police were being economical with the truth and that they were waiting for them to effect any arrest in Techiman.

He explained that nobody had been arrested in connection with the fracas which led to the death of three people in Tuobodom, pointing out that the police only came to the palace for fact-finding.

He said other fact-finding teams such as the Brigadier General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah, National House of Chiefs and parliamentary teams had visited the Techimanhene’s palace and that there was no indication the chief and his sub-chiefs were under investigations.

Abubakar Ameyaw Akumfi warned the police to stay away from the chieftaincy dispute.

The Director General in charge of Operations of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) John Kudalour, told journalists at a press conference in Accra yesterday that the suspects had been granted police enquiry bail since a prima facie case had been established against them. They were thus scheduled to be processed for court in the next couple of days. They were to be charged with the offence of kidnapping, conspiracy to commit crime, stealing, assault, and abetment of crime.

DCOP Kudalor said initial investigations conducted by the police revealed that on March 5, 2010, Nana Asare Baffour II and his secretary, Stephen Boahene were at the premises of the Wenchi High court to hear a civil case in which the former was a plaintiff, when a group of men, numbering about ten on board a Ford bus with registration number AW 2843 Z approached Nana Asare Baffuor II, bundled him and his secretary into the waiting vehicle and sped off to the Techimanhene’s palace where they were allegedly assaulted.

The docket of the case, the Police Commander said, had been forwarded to the Attorney General’s Office for advice

The issue of the alleged kidnapping and assault of the Tuobodomhene, Nana Baffuor Asare, by the Techimanhene, Nana Ameyaw Akumfi and his cohorts, became a topical issue, especially when the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, gave an indication of his intention to kidnap and subject the Techimanhene to the same humiliation he took the Tuobodomhene through, if government and the police failed to bring the perpetrators to book.

Barely 24 hours after the Otumfuo served this notice, President Atta Mills had no option but to quickly dispatch his Security Advisor, Brigadier-General Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (rtd) and other top government and NDC officials, to the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi to calm down the Asantehene in order to broker peace.

After meeting the Asantehene, General Nunoo-Mensah assured Otumfuo that government and the police would investigate the matter and bring those culpable to book.

Touching on the unending Bawku conflict, the Director of Police Operations revealed that the police would change their tactics to bring peace to the area, stressing that “as part of measures taken by the Police Administration in the Bawku conflict, a national operations officer and four senior officers have been appointed to assist the divisional command”.

Meanwhile, the Bawku Township and its environs have been zoned into four parts, with each zone being headed by a senior police officer.

The police said additional light armoured patrol and troop carrier vehicles had also been deployed to the area to beef up the logistical demands while the national headquarters monitored the situation closely.

DCOP Kudalor noted that the suspects in the Breman Asikuma case in which some NDC youth engaged in acts of lawlessness, leading to the closure of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) office in the area two weeks ago, had been put before court.

The police were currently confronted with the issue of car-snatching since, according to them, from January 2010 to April 2010, a total of 167 cars had been forcefully taken from their owners by unknown assailants.

Out of this number, only 72 of the cars had been retrieved.

In the Eastern region alone, 15 cars had been snatched from their owners, with only five recovered.

On his party, the Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), DCOP Frank Adu- Poku, indicated that eight persons who were arrested for possessing fire arms which led to the death of three persons had been remanded in police custody, and scheduled to reappear in court on April 12, 2010.