Bloody clash looms at East Legon

Chronicle’s intelligence and monitoring of the operations of landguards at Nmai Dzorn near East Legon, a suburb of Accra, have spotted a number of the Ghana Armed Forces operating with the landguards.

Already tension in the area has reached its zenith as the people of Nmai Dzorn have vowed to defend and protect their lands. Their avowal, according to insiders, was due to similar illegal operations perpetrated by the security personnel about three years ago that led to the death of an elderly of the town, a week after he was subjected to torture.

It prompt measures are not put in place to arrest the situation the tension in the area may escalate into something else, “Chronicle” can report. Our sources within the Ghana Armed Forces confirmed the involvement of some personnel of the army and said punitive actions had been taken against the leader of the gang whose activities had brought the name of the service into disrepute.

To add insult to injury, about three weeks ago, one of the estates developers, Dr Mensah Quaye, former NDC MP for Dadekotopon, managed to send police personnel to arrest a number of private developers there. The genesis of the tension could be traced to attempts by estates developers to wrest the land from the people of Nmai Dzorn without even paying a dime for it.

Notable among the estate developers who were moving heaven and earth to annex the land from the people of Nmai Dzorn are Dr Mensah Maceranaky Quaye, the managing director of Harcbour Company Limited, Eric Afotey Odai, and Adjei Konuah of Salem Estate Limited.

The problems of the Nmai Dzorn people, who are under the Teshie traditional council, can be traced to far back as the 1990s when some of the mentioned estate developers approached them for land.

“Chronicle” gathered that in 1994, Afotey, led by a deputy director of the Survey Department, approached the chiefs and elders of Nmai Dzorn for land. At the end of the meeting and negotiations, he agreed to buy 400 plots of land at 3m cedis each. This brought the total amount to 1.2bn cedis at that time.

Afotey had since paid only 205m cedis out of the 1.2bn cedis. The 205m cedis was paid in four instalments and it represented the cost of about 80 out of the 400 plots he proposed to purchase. Since then, the paper gathered, Afotey has not made any efforts to settle the balance of 995m cedis but strangely he has started selling the plots to private individuals and estate developers. He is reported to have given 200 plots to NTHC Company Limited.

When “Chronicle” contacted Afotey last week he promised to meet the “Chronicle” reporter over the issue last Sunday, but has since then nothing has been heard from him. So far the damage caused by Afotey and his landguards is estimated to be running to 100m cedis in the last nine months.

On his part, Dr Quaye denied using the landguards and security personnel to brutalise private developers in the area. On the issue of the police personal, said that he had obtained an order from a court to stop private developers.

When “Chronicle” reached the police Public Relations Directorate, David Eklu, the head of the department, confirmed that policemen were sent to the area to arrest private developers following an order given to Quaye by a Tema Circuit Court.

But when the paper asked Dr Quaye to disclose whom he purchased his land from, it took sometime to release the names of the people who sold the land to him. “I have all the documents covering the land so why do you want to tell whom I bought the land from?” he asked.

After initial hesitation Quaye told “Chronicle” that he bought the land from the people of Nungua.

But documents sighted by the paper, including some 1992 National Investigations Committee (NIC) reports on the ownership of the land in question, clearly confirm that the area in contention was for the people of Nmai Dzorn and not even for the people of Ashale Botwe who had tried over the years to take over Nmai Dzorn lands.

It was gathered that Quaye once approached the chief of Nmai Dzorn to purchase the land in question but since then nothing had been heard from him until recently, when he begun tormenting private developers with the help of some landguards and security personnel.

Furthermore, “Chronicle” can report that Adjei Konuah has also not paid for the land he purchased from Nmai Dzorn. He had only paid what is known as knocking fee.