He was arrested earlier on Saturday.

[contextly_sidebar id=”ndHVpTv0ScefqvZ3yDgnyNhlvjAZnsVD”]The latest arrest brings the total number of arrested suspects taken into police custody today in the Ashanti Region to eight.

The police have so far arrested about 17 suspects and have vowed to arrest all perpetrators involved in the incident.

Confirming the arrest to Citi News, the Public Relations Officer of the Ashanti Regional Police Command, ASP Juliana Obeng, said the suspect will soon be transferred to the Central Region.

“Just some few hours ago I had confirmation that a twelve year old boy has been arrested at Manso Nkwanta again in connection with the murder of Captain Mahama. So we are going to add him to the seven that we have and hand them over to the Central Regional Police Command to continue with the interrogation,” she added.

Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama was lynched by some residents of Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region after being mistaken for an armed robber.

The late Captain and his colleagues from the 5^th Infantry Battalion were deployed to fight illegal miners in the area.

Capt. Mahama to be buried on June 9

The family of the late Captain has announced Friday, June 9, 2017, as the burial date of their fallen son.

The family said he will be buried at the Military Cemetery in Accra.

The head of the family, Zakaria Sakara, made the announcement at the family’s press conference on Saturday.

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By: Franklin Badu Jnr/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post 12-year-old nabbed in Ashanti Region over Capt. Mahama’s murder appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The decision to suspend him today [Thursday] June 1, 2017, was confirmed to Citi News by the Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama.

[contextly_sidebar id=”gmBAY6FIH5ma27iz6Z6NLyNSIxx8v8hM”]“The President has directed that we do some investigations on the matter and on his [Daniel Apiannin’s] conduct and report. In the interim, he is to hand over his duties to the Deputy Central Regional Minister [Thomas Agyei Baffour]. Therefore, for now, he has been suspended,” the minister stated.

Hajia Mahama noted that the investigation, which will be overseen by the Central Regional Minister, is to cover “the recent events and what has happened in the press – his utterances and all that.”

“We need to have a good view of that, find out what happened and thereafter, we will look at his actions and decide whether he should be relieved of his position. But in the interim, he is on suspension… His utterances have been there. People have questioned the utterances and all that. We are a responsible government. We respond to the queries of people so we are responding and asking him to go on suspension,” she added.

The DCE had made comments suggesting that the deceased and his colleagues were in the area to protect illegal Chinese miners, contrary to the police and the Military High Command’s claims that they were rather in the area on an anti-galamsey mission.

The DCE’s comments, which angered many, was seen as a justification for the dastardly act by the angry youth, who claim to have lynched the officer because they thought he was a robber.

Mr. Apiannin had also said he was not aware of any military presence for any official operation.

Criticism from predecessor

The immediate past DCE for Upper Denkyira West, Ambrose Amoah Eshia, had criticized Mr. Appianin for dereliction of duty, which he said may have led to the lynching of Captain Mahama.

Mr. Amoah Eshia, the new DCE ought to have been aware of the presence of military personnel in his jurisdiction and taken steps to protect them.

Capt. Mahama, was an officer of the 5th Infantry Battalion, was said to have been on his daily jogging routine on Monday when he was lynched by some residents of Denkyira-Obuasi, a town near Diaso where the military was based.

So far about seven persons have been arrested in connection with the murder.

The suspects include William Baah, Assemblyman and teacher, 36, farmer; Yaw Antwi, 32, farmer; Bismarck Donkor, 36, farmer; Kofi Badu, 29, farmer; Kofi Nyame, 29, farmer; Anthony Amoah, 23, Okada operator and Philip Badu, 30, a prison assistant.

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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post DCE suspended over Capt. Mahama’s killing appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

He was not attacked by armed robbers. He was lynched! He met his untimely death in the hands of a group of people at Dankyira Boase who appropriated to themselves the powers of the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary.

They tried him in the very court of their charged minds, passed their own judgment on him, and that settled it for them.

It is called mob justice! The extrajudicial action, commonly called lynching, has been one of man’s lowest level of reasoning across societies the world over. When carried out, you can picture a human group that stands at par with that carnivore in the forest that we hear of and dread.

In the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries in the United States, lynching was a lucrative venture for marauding White supremacists who executed instant justice on helpless Blacks. What qualified a Black to be lynched was a simple suspicion that a Black is a criminal.

Even Black right activists, both Whites and Blacks, were not spared. What is clear is lynching has been a tool used by its practitioners to deal decisively with those they perceive evil and unwanted.

Here in Ghana, our history and our contemporary times have not been spared of the gruesome act. Some have been lynched in this country at places where residents deemed them strangers walking around, suspecting them of the usual chorus: ‘acting strangely’, and a code signalled. What strange acts are is something yet to be defined.

Others have been lynched in this country because they were thought of as witches. Also in this case, the parameters in determining who a witch is has not been properly laid out yet.

Very commonly in our Ghanaian societies, when locals grab a suspected robber, the probability that the robber will be lynched is high. If luck embraces him or her on a day, the robber may only have severe beating without dying before the police take over.

In my life, I have come across a young man who had both palms nailed on a coconut tree in an ancient Roman crucifixion style for allegedly stealing someone’s coconut. He struggled with the pain for a while and died.

The question has been what makes people engage in mob justice. Mind you, the perpetrators are both males and females.

Several reports and expert analysis have attributed the heartless acts to people’s lack of trust in our security agencies and our justice systems. People will say they do not understand why a robber or a suspected criminal arrested in the act should be allowed to walk freely on the streets.

They feel that our justice system has not been dealing with criminals in the way they think they must be dealt with. Despite the fact that our police and courts have their own flaws, what these people fail to realise is a person is not guilty until proven so by a court of competent jurisdiction.

We must also admit that, as a society, we have failed badly to educate the people. It is worrying to think of what practically an institution like the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) is doing in the form of public education to let citizens understand some basic laws as well as rights and responsibilities.

We live in a country of religion: divided into a majority Christian, followed by Muslims, traditionalists and others. The basic thing in religion is to make its adherents live lives worthy of attracting the favour of the being worshipped. And that will mean living morally upright lives.

However, after trooping into churches, mosques, shrines and others, we still remain detached from basic moral standards. A moral person does not only occupy himself with basic good and bad deeds, but also loves his neighbour as himself. By extension, I cannot look at my fellow human being and hit his skull with a piece of brick or stone. That makes me descend to the level of animals in a jungle.  This makes us ask: “What are people preached to?”

What practical training and knowledge is our educational curriculum equipping its consumers with? Our textbooks are pregnant with civic theories that are only meant to be memorised and later poured on sheets of paper for marks to get graded.

Our educational system has failed to churn out products that have respect for our laws and civic responsibilities. Thus, it is not strange to find a person with degrees and in suit openly or secretly defending or offering support in the perpetuation of mob justice.

It is time our police showed the citizenry their unflinching resolve to deal with these self-styled executioners walking on the streets of Ghana in line with the laws of the land. Again, the prosecutors of crime and the courts should expedite criminal cases before them since dragging them courts unnecessary public upheavals.

Until citizens respect the laws, respect the dignity of their fellow human beings irrespective of wherever they come from, their profession, their differences; until our security forces stand up to this menace and until our justice system gains appreciable trust from the people, the lynching of the late Captain Maxwell Mahama may not be the last in Ghana

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By: Joseph Ackon-Mensah (Email: [email protected])

The post Mob justice: Will Captain Mahama be the last? [Article] appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.