Mob sets police station ablaze…Cops, families flee
Amendment to the Constitution is in order – Obed Asamoah
Two teenagers jailed for stealing
Big crisis in NPP…General Secretary threatens to resign
Fall-out from Yankah’s exit…Demo to rock Kumasi
NDC takes steps to check NPP vile moves
Rawlings arrested Ghana’s decline…Financial Times of London
Mob sets police station ablaze…Cops, families flee
The Ghanaian Times reports in its top story that an enraged mob on Saturday, completely burned down the Barikese Police Station in the Atwima District of Ashanti, after sending the policemen and their families fleeing into the bush for dear life.
The Times says the mob action followed the death of a cargo truck driver, Iddrisu Mahama, through a gun shot allegedly fired by Sergeant S.Y. Boadu of the station, during a scuffle over the policeman’s rifle. Sergeant Boadu is reported to be in custody in Kumasi, on the orders of the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, Mr Yaw Adu Gyimah. The paper says the body of the driver has been deposited at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital mortuary for autopsy. According to police sources, the Barikese police had information on Saturday that a group of people were carting illegally sawn timber from the area to Kumasi The Times says Sergeant Boadu, armed with a rifle, intercepted a Bedford truck loaded with chain-sawn timber in front of the police station.
The paper says the driver, taking advantage of the darkness, alighted from the vehicle and allegedly drew a wheel spanner and hit Sergeant Boadu and in the ensuing, the rifle went off killing Mahama instantly. According to the story, a large number of the inhabitants, who were attracted to the scene of the incident, stormed the police station, housed in a private building and set it ablaze.
The Times says everything at the station, including documents and property of the policemen and their families were destroyed in the fire. It says Sergeant Boadu and five other policemen managed to escape with their families into the bush.
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Amendment to the Constitution is in order – Obed Asamoah
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr Obed Asamoah is reported as explaining that the decision of the government to seek amendments to some provisions of the Constitution is motivated by the desire to resolve some contradictions and grey areas of the law that impinges on the national development efforts.
Dr Asamoah said such amendments are also designed to remove undue obstacles in the legal system and speed up the free, fair and impartial administration of justice to meet the demands and needs of Ghanaians.
The Attorney-General is said to have offered this explanation in an interview in Accra yesterday, in reaction to a "Daily Graphic" front-page story on Friday, November !2, 1999, in which a group of legal experts expressed their objection to the proposed amendments to some provisions of the Constitution.
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Two teenagers jailed for stealing
In a back-page story, the Graphic reports that two teenagers, who conspired and stole 6.3 million cedis cash and a television set belonging to a businessman, were yesterday jailed for a total of 12 years by an Accra Circuit Tribunal, chaired by Mrs Frances Owusu Arhin. The convicts, Solomon Nyaho Addo and Isaac Adjetey Adjei, both 17, pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to commit crime, unlawful entry and stealing, and were convicted on their own plea. Each of them will serve a six-year prison term. According to the prosecution, one Nii Odoi, the complainant, is a lotto writer, who also operates a provision shop at La in Accra. The Graphic quoting the prosecution says on October 27, this year, at about 2.30 a.m. the complainant left 6.3 million cedis, being proceeds from the sale of lotto coupons, in the shop, locked it and left for home. The paper says that when Nii Odoi returned to the shop around 5 p.m., he found that the door had been forced open and the money, a television set valued at 1.3 million cedis and an unspecified quantity of provisions stolen. Two weeks later the police received information that Nyaho Addo and others entered the shop to commit the crime. When the suspect was arrested, the television set and a bag containing lotto documents belonging to the complainant, was retrieved from his room and upon interrogation, he mentioned Adjetey Adjei as his accomplice, the Graphic says, quoting the prosecution.
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Big crisis in NPP…General Secretary threatens to resign
In a front-page banner headline story, the Guide says the NPP is again losing an opportunity to win power, come the year 2000, even though the ruling NDC has lost grips of the power.
The paper says instead of top NPP members using their time and energy to mobilise their supporters for the next elections, they are engaged in serious in-fighting that revolves around personalities rather than on issues. According to the Guide, there is a very serious internal conflict that will for a long time, task the time and resources of the party and at worse, break the NPP apart.
The story says the problem has degenerated into factionalism, the kind that split the United Party (UP tradition into Popular Front Party (PFP) and United National Convention (UNC) in 1979.
The Guide says on October 28 and 30, this year, two top NPP members sent two separate letters to the party’s National Chairman, indicting the General Secretary, Mr Dan Botwe, for what the authors of the letters described as "arrogant and reprehensible behaviour".
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Fall-out from Yankah’s exit…Demo to rock Kumasi
The Independent says that President Jerry John Rawlings may have exercised his constitutional right "to appoint and disappoint" by removing Honourable Kojo Yankah as Ashanti Regional Minister, but events from Kumasi seem to suggest that a body of citizens are strongly against the move.
The paper says the Kumasi-based Concerned Citizens’ Association, has scheduled Tuesday, November 23, as a day of protest to demand the reinstatement of Kojo Yankah, whom they described as "the best NDC Minister of the millennium, and to protest the continued retention of Okumkom Akwasi Agyeman as Kumasi Metropolitan (KMA) boss".
The Independent says at a forum organised in Kumasi last Friday, November !2, to plan for the removal of Okumkom, Nana Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, chairman of the group that is spearheading a campaign to unseat Nana Akwasi Agyeman as the KMA boss, commended Kojo Yankah for a good job done as Regional Minister and said bringing Samuel Nuamah Donkor to the region was not in the right direction.
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NDC takes steps to check NPP vile moves
In a front-page story, the Ghanaian Democrat says the rank and file of the NDC has been advised to remain steadfast in the face of the recent propaganda and dirty tactics being adopted by the opposition parties to destabilise the country.
The rank and file is said to have also been assured that the party hierarchy is not resting on its oars but is coming out with strategies that will neutralise any sinister move by the opposition. According to the Democrat, this was the message sent out at an emergency constituency and ward meeting of the National Youth Working Committee of the NDC in collaboration with the Greater Accra Regional Secretariat of the party.
The paper says the meeting, which was called at the instance of the General Secretary of the NDC, Alhaji Huudu Yahaya, was to reawaken and energise the constituency, ward and zonal youth organisers of the party towards the future challenges.
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Rawlings arrested Ghana’s decline…Financial Times of London
The Ghana Palaver in its lead story, says the influential "Financial Time of London", has described the President, Flt-Lt. Jerry Rawlings as "the man who has arrested Ghana’s political and economic decline and put it on the pedestal of political stability and economic growth".
The Palaver says in a report on Ghana, published on November 4, 1999, ahead of the visit of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to Ghana last week, the Financial Times, scanning Ghana’s disastrous past concluded: "In February 1966, a military coup established the National Liberation Council headed by Lt-General J.A. Ankrah. "It marked a critical step in what was to prove a disastrous decline in the first of Britain’s African colonies to achieve independence.
The decline was only arrested when the man, who this week plays host to the Queen, led the coup that was to shape Ghana’s future and eventually return the country to democracy".
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