Students clash with residents over land

Three students of the Dabokpa Senior High School in the Northern Region have sustained various degrees of injures following a clash between some students and residents.

The three, who sustained the injuries after students of the Dabokpa Senior High School engaged the residents in a bout of stone-throwing, are receiving treatment at the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that students of the school were reportedly building a fence wall around their school to keep encroachers at bay when natives of the area attacked them.

Alhaji Baba, a resident of the area who has lived on a piece of land believed to belong to the school with his family for more than two decades has vowed not to relocate.

All attempts by the school authorities to eject him from the school property over the years have failed and that resulted in a tension between the school authorities and residents of the area who were against his removal.

A court order directed the two parties to engage in a dialogue to settle the case but the dialogue was short lived as it ended in disagreement.

The disagreement is said to have resulted into violent confrontations and attacks on the students as residents and sympathizers of Alhaji Baba prevented the students from laying the foundation for the fence wall.

On Tuesday October 31, 2017, minutes after the school authorities asked the students to postpone the laying of the foundation, Alhaji Baba and his family started a clamor.

The students retaliated by throwing stones and other objects into the house.

Police were called in after an army of object-wielding residents came out to support Alhaji Baba.

Security details have since been deployed at the school to maintain order in the area but residents have vowed to revenge; immediately the police officers leave the compound.

Alhaji Baba was heard retorting, “I will enter my house. I don’t have anywhere to go. Anything that happens is God. I will leave it for God. I have three wives with 15 children. That is why I sent the matter to court. This house has been here for the past 22 years and you gave me just a week to vacate it with no compensation,”

Meanwhile, Alhaji Baba has vowed that until the matter is settled by the court, he would continue to fight all attempts to remove him from the land.