Odumse: Suspects In Bloody Attack Released Under ‘Questionable’ Excuse

…As Police Fail To Deal With Rising Cases Of Landguard Activities

A Circuit court in Ashaiman has under questionable circumstances granted bail to three suspects arrested in connection with the shooting of some persons in a land dispute case in Odumse in the Dodowa District of the Greater Accra Region.

The suspects on the 12th of May, 2024 were reported to have shot two officials of the Odumse Traditional Council who had stormed the land contention to prevent them from working since the case is pending before a court of competent jurisdiction.

Reports suggest the land has been a bone of contention between the Odumse Traditional Council and the people of Wedokum (another community within the Shai state) leading to a high court judge in Tema directing all parties to desist from working on the said land until the court rules on the matter before it.

However, checks indicate that members of the Wedokum community had defied the court orders and have since begun working on the said land. This had informed the Odumse Traditional Council to quickly dispatch a team of task force to stop the work.

In their bid to stop the ongoing work, the suspects who had premeditated motives started firing indiscriminately at the victims. This resulted in two of the task force teams namely Amose Narh and Tony Turkson sustaining gunshot wounds.

Despite the Dodowa police managing to arrest three out of the seven suspects and arranging them before the court, the Ashaiman Circuit court managed to grant bail to the three suspects who had initially been denied bail due to the gravity of their offence.

In a bizarre circumstance, the Ashaiman Circuit court last week released the three suspects on grounds of food poison which they suffered while in police custody detention at the Tema Community Two police cells.

Some residents in Odumse who spoke to the media on the latest development, could not hide their disappointment in the operations of the Tema Community Two Police Command and the Ashaiman Circuit Court. According to them, this is not the first time such an ordeal has been meted out to them by both the police and the court.

They averred that the conduct of these two institutions in the past months has contributed significantly to the rise in land guard stack cases in Odumse. They alleged that one Samuel Tetteh of Wedokum, who is the main architect of recent land guard attacks on property owners in Odumse, has been left off the hook on several occasions by the police and the court despite concrete evidence against him. They believe some corruptible elements within the Tema Community 2 Police Command are the cause of their troubles and are therefore calling on the Inspector General of Police and the Interior Minister to act exceedingly in addressing the situation in Odumse.