Reports coming from Wa and Mankessim in the Upper West and Central regions of the country respectively are that some dead bodies have been discovered under very suspicious circumstances. One of the deceased is a 22-year-old nurse trainee, Georgina Asor Botchwey, whose body was exhumed by police investigators on Tuesday.
According to reports, the Pastor, who assisted the police to retrieve the body, was the very person who allegedly helped the Chief (Tufuhen) of Ekumfi Akwakrom to kidnap, rape, kill and secretly bury the 22-year-old in his apartment.
Although investigations are yet to establish what led to the incident, Georgina Botchwey was said to have met her untimely death after having gone for an interview in Cape Coast, capital of the Central Region.
While people are overwhelmed and taken aback by the news of the mysterious death of the 22-year-old nurse trainee, reports coming from the northern sector of the country are no different. Fear has gripped residents of Wa, following the discovery of some dead bodies on Sunday and Monday.
Media reports had it that the human remains were discovered in bushes by security personnel with the support of a search party, led by a youth group at Bamahu, a suburb of Wa. The police have been able to identify one of the bodies as that of a 58-year-old private security man.
What The Chronicle finds difficult to comprehend is that the search party found other human body parts at the area where the corpses were discovered. And, again, the discovery of a new corpse happened just about 24 hours after the Ghana Police Service had deployed almost 300 personnel to Wa to protect lives and properties.
While the financial cost of keeping or maintaining security in the area at the expense of development cannot be over emphasised, the effect of insecurity on the lives of people can also not be underestimated.
In fact, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wa Central, Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, expressed fear that women and the old would be left vulnerable to the tragic occurrences, and blamed the situation on weak intelligence gathering by the security officers.
According to the Legislator, this weak link gives the perpetrators the liberty to carry out their nefarious activities and, therefore, called for an effective system to address the issue.
The Chronicle sides with the Member of Parliament to some extent. It is our position that while the police have the duty of the prevention and detection of crime, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, maintenance of law and order, and protection of life and property, the public also has the responsibility to report suspicious characters or happenings to the police.
The police have maintained that for every crime that is committed, there is one public eye that sees it, and the public needs to be encouraged to volunteer information to the security agencies whenever necessary.
The Chronicle agrees that concerns over Ghana’s security in contemporary times has been fueled by various factors, including internal and external, but while it is next to impossible to control external factors that affect its traditional security, the same cannot be said about internal matters.
We want to urge the public not to turn a blind eye on matters of security concerns, as what has happened to Georgina and other persons in Wa could be their fate also. So if you see something, say something.
