Students on rampage destroy cars, bikes and ransack teachers’ homes

One of the cars destroyed by the students

The police are on a manhunt for some male students of the Nkwanta Senior High School (SHS) in the Nkwanta South Municipality of the Volta Region for rioting and destroying school properties worth millions of Ghana cedis.

The students destroyed three cars belonging to the school, 16 motorbikes belonging to teachers, all the streetlights on the school compound, one air conditioner and some belongings of their teachers in the riot, which took place on Monday night, October 29, 2018.

According to the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the area, John Thasun, the incident occurred after some teachers seized the mobile phones of some House One students, who had skipped prep and were hiding in their dormitories making calls.

In an interview with journalists, he stated that: “On 3 October, 2018, there was a school performance appraisal meeting to find out the cause of the low performance of students. A decision was taken to instill discipline. From that day, the teachers have been praised for seizing the phones of students, for adding extra hours to teaching and for supervising students to do their personal studies.”

He said, “however, on Monday some teachers got to know that some students did not sleep at the dorm, so, they organised a roll call after prep. The teachers made an unannounced visit to the dormitories during prep, where they saw some students making phone calls and seized their phones.

“Some boys who were unhappy began to pelt the teachers who ran for cover. The angry boys destroyed the streetlights on campus and chased the teachers who managed to escape. They called me and I called the police for assistance but the boys pelted the police, destroying the commander’s car. “I called for military reinforcement from Nkwanta and the boys took to their heels; some into the bush and others into the town when they sighted the soldiers.”

Mr Thasun said the students went to the homes of the teachers who had seized their phones to ransack and destroy their belongings, including TV sets and other home appliances.

Meanwhile, Mr Thasun has said that the Regional Security Council was expected to meet yesterday to decide on the next line of action. However, calm has been restored on campus as at press time yesterday.