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End breast cancer stigmatisation Mrs Sumani
Mrs Ramatu Sumani
A cancer advocate, Mrs Ramatu Sumani has urged women to champion the course to end stigmatisation against breast cancer patients and survivors.
According to her, misconceptions surrounding the disease was a major contributory factor to the reason most survivors and sufferers of the disease continued to live in fear.
Mrs Sumani made the assertion in an interview with The Spectator on Monday.
She said it was important for women to come out in their numbers to speak to issues confronting them if they wanted to make the country and world safer and better for themselves and young girls.
She said women’s active participation in the fight against breast cancer stigma could help raise awareness about the importance of early detection methods such as regular self-examinations and mammograms, stressing that when more women are knowledgeable about the risks and symptoms of breast cancer, lives can be saved through early diagnosis and treatment.
She said cancer among Ghanaian women, especially breast cancer should be of concern to every woman, considering the high number of women who are diagnosed of the disease in Ghana each year, and the fact that many breast cancer patients need to undergo surgery to remove the affected breast or both breast as part of the treatment.
“The stigmatisation usually arises when people start pointing at women who have lost their breasts to cancer, to the extent that newly diagnosed ones do not want to even report to any health facility when they notice abnormalities in their breast.”
“This is not what we want as women. We should rather focus on encouraging each other than gossiping about our sisters without breast. This is bad. Let us rise above such acts and render support to each other. If it happens to your sister today, it can happen to you tomorrow so let us all come together to show love to breast cancer fighters and survivors,” she said.
Touching on the rate of breast cancer among women in Ghana, Mrs Sumani, who is also a breast cancer survivor and organiser for the Cancer Support Network Foundation said the World Health Organisation (WHO) – Cancer Country Profile of Ghana 2020, shows that breast cancer is the number one cancer among women in Ghana with an incidence of 20.4 per cent and a relatively high mortality rate.
That, she said, was not encouraging therefore efforts against all obstacles hindering the progress of the fight against the disease in Ghana should be intensified as a matter of urgency, to save lives.
Stigmatisation, she said, can have severe psychological and emotional effects on breast cancer patients and survivors, “however women’s involvement in challenging stigmatisation can contribute to the creation of a supportive environment that uplifts and encourages those affected by the disease,” Mrs Sumani added.
By Raissa Sambou
The Ghana Police Service has launched a manhunt for Prince Krah, a 30-year-old military officer, in connection with the brutal murder of a couple at Saki, near Tema Golf City.
A GH₵100,000 reward has been offered for any credible information leading to his arrest.The victims, identified as Ebenezer Kwabena Obiri, 45, and Mary Anim, 22, were discovered dead in their chamber-and-hall apartment on May 1, 2026.
According to police reports, both bodies bore multiple machete wounds. Investigators established that the suspect had been cohabiting with the couple prior to the incident.
Police records indicate that Mr. Obiri was last seen alive in the company of Krah on the night of April 30.
Following preliminary investigations, the Kpone Magistrate Court issued a warrant for the suspect’s arrest on May 4.Krah is described as being approximately 5.7 feet tall, dark in complexion, and of stout build.
He was last seen wearing a Lacoste shirt and jeans.Security intelligence suggests that Krah has gone into hiding and may be seeking refuge within the Kakusunanka area or the Kamina Barracks in Tamale.
They have urged the public to exercise caution and report any sightings of the suspect to the nearest police station or via the emergency toll-free lines 191 or 112.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
The minority leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has called for the immediate release of former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Food Buffed Stock Company, NAFCO over what he describe as extra judicial harassment.
In a statement by the minority leader, he noted that “I have become aware of the unwarranted arrest and incarceration of the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Food and Buffer Stock Company, Abdul-Wahab Hanan Aludiba and his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni, by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) yesterday, 5th May, 2026.”
Mr.Afenyo-Markins described the incident as a needless and face-saving arrest adding that “followed one year of arraignment of the two accused persons with 3 others in court on charges whose weakness and frivolity were exposed by defence counsel through objections raised and upheld by the court at the Case Management Conference held in the course of the trial.”
According to him the Attorney-General, in response to the objections raised and in a bid to boost the weak prosecution he had initiated, attempted to introduce fresh witness statements without leave of the court, contrary to the rules governing the conduct of criminal proceedings in the Republic.
He added that when an objection was raised again by defence counsel led by Mr. Godfred Yeboah Dame and same was upheld by the court, the Attorney-General’s next move was to withdraw all the charges against the accused persons.
According to him “One would have thought that EOCO would step back, conduct more thorough investigations and understand the matter before deciding whether to charge the accused persons again or not.”
“However, in an impulsive and knee-jerk reaction, EOCO re-arrested Mr. Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife for offences unknown to even his legal team and whisked them off to the EOCO office. Strangely, they have been refused bail and have been kept in custody since yesterday, even though they were on bail granted by the court just before the charges were withdrawn,” he added.
He further noted that Hanan’s lawyers, who were at the offices of EOCO from about 11 am until 8 pm last night, were denied access to him.
This according to the Afenyo-Markin the conduct of EOCO, the Attorney-General and the Government as a whole, in harassing and torturing these innocent citizens of the land in the manner described above, very shameful, reprehensible and most unworthy of a healthy democracy that Ghana has struggled to build the past 33 years.
He therefore added that the law enforcement processes should be deployed to deal with actual wrongdoing in accordance with due process and not utilised as a propagandist machinery for the Government by arresting and detaining leading members of the opposition as a way of purporting to give meaning to the Government’s failed ORAL promise.
“I take note that the Attorney-General held a massive press conference last year, cited the Buffer Stock case as a major example of the ORAL drive, and vilified these same accused persons as having stolen money from the State when he had not even filed any charges against them,” he added.
“EOCO’s move in rearresting the accused persons after charges had been withdrawn (after a whole year of subjecting the accused persons to unnecessary assassination of their character) is clearly a desperate attempt to save the face of the Attorney-General and sustain a false impression of a continuation of the Government’s failed ORAL promise,” he noted.
“The EOCO boss, Raymond Archer, must learn to operate in accordance with due process like his predecessors used to do. That important institution of State must not be turned into a rogue outfit for harassing and torturing innocent citizens extra judicially when the Government becomes frustrated by a failure to prove offences levelled against them in a court of law, as we have seen in the Buffer Stock,” he said.
“I call on EOCO and the Attorney-General to release Hanan Abdul-Wahab and his wife, Faiza Seidu Wuni immediately.This impunity must stop,” he concluded.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
