It appears Ghanaians have come to accept the behavior of crooks, calling themselves “Land Guards.”
Because no one is tackling this nonsense, the land guards have now become a force extorting money from people who are building in some parts in Accra.
What they do is that they get to any building site on motor bikes and demand money, if you pay once, another group comes to make demands on you. They apply all sorts of threats to make the victims pay.
A case in point is the unlawful demolishing of a fence wall on a three (3) plot of land belonging to Nii Atuquaye Fio Hefeo Betsofa, an Accra resident.
The landgaurds who are believed to working for one Lawyer Graham besieged the construction site and demanded an amount of GH¢5000 from the land owner as lawyer Graham’s land guards fees.
After the back and forth he decided to pay and have his peace of mind.
According to the victim, after a week they demolished the wall again and when he enquired why they told him that lands sold in that community are expensive so he has to cough up 50,000.00 as land guard fees before he would be allowed to build. According to the victim he reported the matter to the police but the police advised him that since the hoodlums goes to demolish the structures deep in the night he should negotiate with them and have his peace because the police cannot be there till late in the night.
After the negotiations, he agreed on paying GH¢ 40,000.00 out of which he made an initial payment of GH¢ 20,000.00. Five days after, hey pulled down the wall claiming he should complete payment before he will have full access over the land. He therefore paid them the remaining balance of GH¢ 20,000.00, totaling GH¢ 45,000.00 paid to them. Strangely just about two weeks ago Lawyer Graham cane to the construction site an left his complimentary card to the caretaker threatening that if the victim fails to pay him his share of the money he will order his landguards with machines to demolish the fence wall for the third time. True to his word his fence wall has been demolished again.
Nii Atuquaye Fio Hefeo Betsofa has therefore petitioned the Inspector General of Police(IGP) David Asante Appietu to use his good offices and take action against Lawyer Graham since he cannot continue paying monies to this unlawful perpetrator since he cherish the peace of the country and wouldn’t want to take the law into his hands.
