Police personnel from the Greater Accra Regional Police Command yesterday launched an attack on drivers at the Shiashi lorry station and physically assaulted them amid severe beatings on the orders of the Ayawaso West Wuogon Municipal Assembly.
Passengers who were stranded as result, and media personnel who were at the scene to cover the incident were not spared the brutalities that the police personnel meted out to people around the area.
This paper has established that the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Ayawaso West, Sandra Owusu-Ahinkorah has for some time now hatched a plot to take over the land which serves as lorry station for the Shiashi drivers.
It emerged that the Ayawaso West Municipal Assembly sold the said land to an individual to be used as a Shopping Mall, hence the entrenched position by the Assembly to remove the drivers from the land so it can hand over the land to the alleged buyer.
This has generated some serious tension between the Assembly, the drivers and the allodia owners, of the said land; Toboase Family, who have on countless occasions indicated that they have neither given nor sold the land to the Assembly but that the land was given to the drivers to be used as a lorry station.
Tension however reduced until recently, the Assembly again stormed the land and erected wooden fences round the station preventing the drivers from entering the land.
The drivers raised serious questions about the decision of the Assembly to take over the land but their requests fell on death ears.
However, the situation at the station yesterday was brutal when the Assembly sought the services of the police to prevent the drivers and passengers from entering the land.
This paper can confirm that, the police personnel who were at the site to carry out the orders of the Assembly and their masters, brutalized the drivers amid severe beatings and firing of gun shots.
The police in the process, used the buts of their guns in hitting the drivers as well as passengers who were around trying to catch a bus to their work places.
Some journalists were also assaulted and arrested by the police for being there to take coverage of the incident.
Many of the drivers sustained severe and various degrees of injury from the attacks from the police personnel.
Information gathered is that the Assembly in taking such a decision has failed to inform the drivers of the decision to close the station.
“We arrived here this morning only to see that the whole place was fenced with plywoods and there is heavy police presence here. The police decided to attack us and indeed, you can see what they have done to us. They beat us, they used their guns to hit us and as you can see many of us sustained serious injuries,” Jacob Taylor, Vice Chairman of the Shiashi drivers Association said in an interview.
According to Jacob Taylor the land was given to them by the Toboase family to use as a lorry station and that they have been using the land since 2001.
“They blocked the entrance whilst our vehicles were packed in the yard preventing us from even going in to get our cars. We went to the Chief who gave us the land and he promised to follow the matter up and ensure that situations are calm,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Ayawaso West, Sandra Owusu-Ahinkorah said there would be a Security meeting on the incident and the Assembly would issue a communiqué soon on the matter.
