Report: Thieves at work at 'dumsor' vigil

Not all who turned up at last Saturday’s #Dumsormuststop vigil were actually there to walk in solidarity with the celebrities who instigated the march.

Some individuals were actually very busy carrying out a trade that inflicts victims with sorrow and pain. They were petty thieves or pickpockets dressed as comrades.

These angels of the dark made it their priority to dip hands into bags and pockets of other people whose sole aim was to voice their frustration over the debilitating power crisis in the country.

This reporter was not left out of the ordeal. While meandering through the thick of the thousands to reach the organisers with my recorder, I was visited.

Initially, I was not aware my purse had been plundered. So, I was heading home with the joy of a successful vigil.

Then I got a call which begun with the question “have you lost anything?” Momentarily, I turned to my bag, unzipped and to my dismay my purse with money, ID cards and complimentary cards was gone. So, I relayed the discov­ery to the caller only to be told that my name had been mentioned on one of the local radio stations after they found my ID cards.

As some might want to term the occurrence, I would take it as “hazards of the profession.”

While telling my story to my colleagues, our photojournalist, who was at the vigil with me, said he had caught someone’s hand while it was in the back pocket of his pair of trousers.

But generally, the thousands of Ghanaians who joined the celebri­ties and leader Yvonne Nelson on the march were decent and self-comporting.