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Security for traveling clubs now!
We have heard horrifying stories about armed robbers in Ghana attack passengers in the middle of their journeys.
It is not one, two or three. It happens a couple of times in a year with passengers left injured, maimed, brutalised and traumatised.
Sadly, now, the robbers have extended their dreadful operations to footballers – charging them down on the road after football matches.
We have had a number of such incidents of late, and it is now increasingly becoming tormenting!
The latest one on our hand is the attack on Tamale-based FC Savannah Ladies when they were traveling for a Women’s Premier League Matchweek 14 game against Dreamz Ladies FC at the Bantama Astro pitch on Saturday.
According to reports, the robbers collected all the monies of the players and thumped them with canes on top. The torture left the team physiotherapist with injury to the knee and had to be rushed to hospital. Heartily, no tragedy – as regards death, was recorded.
Only last month (March 21), Ghana Premier League (GPL) side AshantiGold SC went through similar terror on their way back to Kumasi after their game against Hearts of Oak in the GPL on Sunday evening. After the game, the team opted to travel in the night back home to Obuasi in the Ashanti Region. Some officials of Hearts, we were told, impressed on the AshGold team to spend the night in Accra and leave the following day. It fell on deaf ears.
According to a report on the Twitter page of the club, the team’s bus was attacked at Assin Endwa as armed robbers shot at the bus. Fortunately, gunshots to the front bulletproof glass could not go through as the driver of the bus managed to drive the team and all onboard to safety.
Last year, too, Ghana Women’s Premier League side Pearl Pia Ladies narrowly escaped a robbery attack after their team bus was shot at in the late hours of Monday, December 21.
The incident was said to have occurred at Yapei, a small town in the Central Gonja District, a district in the Savannah Region of northern Ghana.
The Pearl Pia Ladies were heading to Tamale after a league match against Ampem Darkoa Ladies. The three assailants tried stopping the team bus but the driver upon sensing danger sprinted on top gear.
Disappointed, they fired several gun shots at the bus, but no injuries or deaths were recorded from the atrocious blitz.
Whilst we call on the relevant authorities to beef up security on our highways to steer clear of such incidents, we also think it is incumbent on clubs to carry or engage their own security – especially when they are traveling in the night.
Alternatively, the clubs are hereby advised to avoid night travels altogether. However, if they think they must embark on the trip in the night at all cost, then it would be prudent they engage the security services or seek security advice before making trips.
However, it would also not be out of place if the clubs liaise with the Ghana FA and the Ghana Police Service (GPS) in finding ways of providing consummate security support to teams when they travel across the country.
For now, we can only thank heavens that there have not been any serious casualties in the various scary situations that we have recorded over the years.
However, let us act now before it is too late. We might not be fortunate tomorrow when those muggers strike again.
PlainTalk With John Vigah
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh, has expressed concern over delays in the release of the District Assemblies Common Fund, warning that the situation is stalling development across the country.
On his facebook page, he described as a matter of urgent national importance, the Minority Chief Whip pointed to what he sees as a growing crisis of unpaid contractors, abandoned projects, and halted infrastructure works in many districts.
He noted that several communities are grappling with half completed schools, unfinished health facilities, abandoned markets, deteriorating roads, and stalled sanitation projects.
According to him, many contractors who have executed projects for district assemblies have not been paid, forcing some construction firms to demobilise from sites while workers lose their jobs.
He stressed that the District Assemblies Common Fund is not a discretionary allocation but a constitutional requirement under Article 252 of the 1992 Constitution, intended to support development at the local level.
In his view, years of delayed releases and accumulated arrears have weakened district development financing and disrupted projects meant to improve living conditions in communities.
He further argued that some payments made in recent years were largely the settlement of old debts rather than funding for new or ongoing projects, a situation he believes has affected contractor confidence and local economic activity.
He described the issue as more than a budgetary challenge, characterising it as a development emergency and a governance concern.
He therefore urged the appropriate authorities to pay outstanding DACF arrears, settle contractors who have completed their work, and ensure that transfers to districts are automatic and predictable.
He maintained that decentralisation can only succeed when district assemblies receive adequate and timely funding to carry out development projects.
He emphasised that stalled projects directly affect ordinary citizens, since they rely on such infrastructure for education, healthcare, transportation, sanitation, and economic activities.
He called for renewed attention to grassroots development, insisting that national progress should not be concentrated only in major cities but extended to all communities.
By: Jacob Aggrey
Richard Appiah, the footballer who killed two children and stored part of their bodies in a fridge at Abesim in the Bono Region in 2021 has been handed a lifetime sentence.
This was after a five member panel of judges at the Accra High Court returned a verdict of guilty against the convict.
Appiah, 32, also a draughtsman would spend the rest of his life in prison after he was convicted of murder.
More more more
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
