Police Abandons Kumasi Zongo Communities

THE ASHANTI Regional Police Command has stopped providing security in virtually all the Zongo communities in Kumasi and the nearby areas, the paper understands.

The police ‘snub’, reportedly, started about five months ago, following the shooting of seven Zongo youth at Manso Nkwanta, who the police had tagged as armed robbers.

Reports gathered by the paper indicated that, due to the violence that erupted after the incident,  the police stopped operating in the Zongo communities because they were afraid of being attacked by the angry Zongo youth.

Speaking on the development, Prof. Lukman, a representative of the Sarkin Zongo of Kumasi, lamented that the ‘inactivity’ of the police personnel had led to a total breakdown of security in the Zongos

According to him, lawlessness had become the order of the day as criminals had taken advantage of the vacuum to commit crime freely.

Prof. Lukman, who was speaking during a Town Hall Meeting at Asokore Mampong, appealed to the police to return to work in the Zongo communities.

It is recalled that, following the Manso-Nkwanta incident, a five-man government committee, which investigated the case, cleared all the seven people, and virtually rubbished police claims that they were robbers.

The government, consequently, ordered the police administration to, with immediate effect, interdict the 21 police personnel that were said to be involved in the infamous shooting.

By: Akwasi Boakye