Personally, I have been baffled by how quickly Ghana went from hardly being able to arm the military to the gun culture of today. I have equally been baffled by the government’s seeming inability to arrest the problem. Ghana has to be safe. It is the government’s responsibility to guarantee it; yet I haven’t seen anything that tells me that the government is doing anything in this department. The case of Richmond Atta should offer the government of Ghana a fine opportunity to get started on doing something about this problem.

For those who don’t know, Richmond Attah was arrested on Thursday, February, 18, 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina for stuffing 27 guns and ammunition into a washing machine and a dryer that he was shipping to Ghana. Mr. Attah supposedly has been buying guns since 2013. The question is has any of the guns and ammunition that he has been buying made it into Ghana? This is something that Ghana should seriously look at and I dare say report the findings to the people of Ghana.

The police should look at each time Mr. Attah arrived in Ghana, the people he associated with, and the relations he has in Ghana to see if some of the guns used to commit crimes in Ghana can be linked to him. The government must seize every opportunity to gather as much intelligence as possible. Who knows it may lead to a gun smuggling ring that is responsible for some of the guns in Ghana. It may go a long way to remove some of the menace from the streets and make us a little safer.

As for Mr. Attah, I hope he spends a long, long time where he is going, and if he ever steps foot in Ghana, he should be watched very carefully. I must say, these are the people who should loose their citizenship. Mr. Attah losing his citizenship will ensure that if he ever arrives in Ghana, he will arrive as a foreigner and hopefully will be scrutinized a little more than others. Hopefully he won’t ever be in Ghana long enough to be a menace.


Tony Pobee-Mensah
tpmensahr@yahoo.com